Supreme court abortion case, roe v. Wade. Bob Jones University hosted this 90 minute event. Well, good evening. And welcome to bob Jones University and our first of a series of three forums. We really appreciate you being with us here this evening. If we could, lets 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, the tawics of wellbeing and even life of citizen, 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. I want to set the context and purpose for tonights discussion. Its 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. God instructs his people who are exiled to seek the peeks or welfare of the city where ive 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 its 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 christens life but essential to his or her identity as a person. Evangelicals see themselves in two kingdoms 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 can gelicals in american politics as evangelicals should come as no surprise. But knowing this appropriate call to influence and to participate in democracy is not always straightforward. Sadly, evangelicals have not always exercised this responsibility and wisdom in meekness. Sometimes were so enamored in the political power of this world that we sometimes become blinded by might. In an area where evangelicals have increasingly pressured, chrissians must understand how to carry out their physical responsibilities in meekness and wisdom. First, your understanding of how evangelicals have engaged in selfgovernment has been expanded and secondly i hope we glean lessons from evangelicals of the past that are instructive of our lives today. Our format tonight is pretty simple. After i introduce our panelists, ill ask them questions. And then following those questions, ill take time to answer some of our audience. Be sure to get a card from our volunteers if youve not already done that. And maybe if you dont 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 dont 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. Hes the author of two books and conservative constraints, North Carolina and the new deal. He holds a ba in history in addition he studied in paris, the university of North Carolina chapel hill and harvard divinity school. And then dr. Jim guth served as firmmans chair as both the university and faculty of science department. And initiated the Washington Internship Program which has sent over a thousand firmman students to washington. He holds a bachelor of science from the universe of wisconsin and a phd from harvard university. And then we have a professor of history and director of cedarvilles honors program. His Research Area is 19th century america, especially the political history of the American Civil War in the guilded age. She was selected to attend the American History seminar on the guilded age sponsored by the guilder layerman institution of American History and the counsel of independent colleges hosted by stanford university. His Research Also includes the role of ohio and politics during the 19th century. He holds a ba, an ma and a ph d from the university of akron. And then center right is a candidate of American History and fellow from 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 and debates over 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. Hes received legal history fellowships from yale law school, the Hertz Institute and also holds a ba in history and ma of Church History and a jd from yale law school. Would you please welcome our panelists for tonights discussion. [ applause ] were going to begin tonight what might seem somewhat of a simple question, but i think def definitions are very important. So im 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 well have about two minutes after ive 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 were 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 didnt 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. But clearly there were strands and things held in common in these groups. And so historians debate whether the term evangelicalism is appropriate for these groups. So one historian named david bebenten has marked four issue of what it is and these criteria. Everyone disagrees whether all four go together or whether there should be more than four. Precisely because everyone talks about it and argues with it, its actually sort of a convenient bench mark to start with. So his four qualities that mark an evangelical, the first he calls it biblaicism. The second a way of saying the cross and atonement is really essential to identity. The third is conversion, that the emphasis that individuals ought to be choosing as conversion to the gospel, belief 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 society is active. But especially that belief and conversion ought to change a persons 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 that are suggested to define an evangelical. And i should emphasize they are emphases. 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 would call lutu liturjicals. Which dont so much emphasize going out and converting people the way revivalists did and more instrumental of the sack rumental part of the church, not so much going out and doing the soul winning that the evangelicals are talking about. So let me sort of sketch the time line from the 19th century to now and nalittle bit more of the definition and hopefully that sets the stage for us. Basically in the 19th centurywheel youre thinking about evangelical involvement in politic, you find the people that historians would call evangelicals basically on every side of every issue, on every side of every Political Party, maybe there are arguable emphases we will get to, but there are evangelicals that are very ardently antislaverly and one that defend the institution of slavery. There are ones that are democrats, and republicans and wigs and popalists and the whole litany of parties that went through the 19th century. But there are certain gener generalizations you can make. And they tended to run along generational lines. Baptists and clae catholics almost always reliably vote democratic from jackson into the late 19th century. While methist and presbyterian evangelicals, calvinists, congregationalists and respectable liturgicals, episcopali episcopalians, lutherans and dutch reform fairly reliably vote for the whig party and are involved in the Republican Party after the demise of the whigs. Thats a very different story from what happens in the 20th century. In the 20th century its no longer that you can divide evangelicals along denominational lines and sort of figure out whos politically active where and whos voting for whom. After the rise of liberal theology and the fundamentalist modernist controversy, at the fundamentalist movement gets started, its attracting people from across the denominational boundaries ask. So a methodist fundamentalist founded a school that has a lot of presbyterian fundamentalists on staff and baptists fundamentalists attending as students. Anyone know the school. All sort of together on one side of the political spectrum in a way that hadnt been true of evangelicals in the 19th century. This is referred this thesis is broadly referred to as the restructuring of American Religion which is a coin termed by the sociology at princeton. So briefly that leads me to define one more distinction, hopefully the stage has been set. The term evangelical to sort of distance themselves from that militancy point. Sometimes people refer to this as new evangelicalism. I dont know that that title is very helpful or has any meaning because, really, evangelicalism and fundamentalism are both new in the 1950s in significant ways, in the same way theyre also very old in the 1950s in significant ways. But what happens from that point onward is that these different groups, fundamentalists and evangelicals, often use those labels to make sure you know theyre not the other one. Even though they all share those four emphases that i mentioned of what historically marks evangelicals. Now, to bring this story up to today, the political media and political pollsters have no kind of patience for this nuance, right . Theres no breakdown in how fundamentalists vote and evangelicals vote and where pentecostals fit on that scale or whatever. Evangelical is often used to describe politically conservative christianity of any time and often that term is used interchangeably to talk about evangelicals, to talk about fundamentalists, even to talk about conservative roman catholics who in the 19th century would not at all fit the category as historians use it. So a very long and meandering way to say ive not given you a precise definition because history does not give us a precise definition but i think thats part of the helpfulness and usefulness of starting with the panel on the past and having these panelists here to think through what the change over time is, where those imprecisions are and why they matter to whats going on right now. So thank you again for inviting me. Im looking forward to hearing from the other panelists. So as i said, what seems to be a simple question about just defining what an evangelical is, when you look at it from a Historical Perspective, its complicated and kellen in his answer invited discussion on this so i want to throw out this next question perhaps to the entire panel, whoever might want to jump on it, i think kellen suggested hiss answer to the question but when did evangelicals become recognized as a Political Force or as a Political Movement historically in the United States . Can we point to a particular time when either historians or political scientists have said that evangelicals should be recognized as some sort of a Political Force or some sort of a Political Movement. Anybody . I would just add sort of a working definition to simplify what kellen just laid out for us. For fundamentalists in the 1920s and 30s, they had a very simple way as well of communicating what they meant and they would talk about believing in supernatural christianity. That very quickly got to what they really were all about which would include what kellen just elaborated on and one other thing that they would add, some of them, i dont agree with them, but some would add premillennialism would be. And there was a big debate is mill answer titants the answer premillennialism. So there was all sorts of short hand. I would argue that and i was surprised by this, its an odd source but alexis detoqueville, when he came to america in the 1830s and 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 was in a very positive way that religion and he called it as it was translated, traditional religion, which suggests maybe evangelicalism, hes not using that word obviously but traditional religion and it made americans less selfish, made them more civic minded. It neutralized individualism. It made them better citizens across the board. And so for someone, a foreigner, to come to america and recognize that theres 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. And when you think about whats going on politically, he was here during the jacksonian presidency. Despite that he still saw some very positive things about religi religion. So kellen said an evangelical would be somebody who believes in the supernatural, the new birth specifically, contrasted perhaps with somebody of a main line christian denomination. Were going trace this historically now and toms expertise as i mentioned in the introduction is in 19th century u. S. History. How did evangelicals in the 19th century involve themselves in politics and how did the significant social or political issues that were important to them, perhaps even the key figures that were involved. So theres a lot that i can talk about. I want to focus in on the time period dr. Abrams raised, thats the early part of the 19th century. In that time we see an awakening as historians refer to it. The roots are more and varied. I guess it goes to our conversation about evangelicalisms breadth. Some historians would argue there is a link going back to the first grade awakening and the theology of jonathan edwards. Theres some compelling evidence to suggest thats correct. Edwards was well, theres a lot to edwards theology and i dont pretend to be an expert. But i know he focused on a key phrase that human beings have a natural ability but a moral inability. By that he meant that human beings have a natural ability to do anything. They can do positive things, good works, but their struggle is in their will, their motive and only god can correct that. The reason that thats significant is the influence that that had not only at the time because he was addressing concerns about antinomianism, his response was listen after you come to know christ, after your justification you have to live out the faith, it must be evident in how you live your life. And he would suggest far too much credit was given in the role of the justification process. Kellen referred to the new divinity, one of the many news he mentioned. And those include people like bellamy and hopkins and a number of others and they took that a step further and this is where i see the connection to the second grade awakening. They talked about something called disinterested benevolence. In order to 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 hes going to save you or prevent you from going to hell or bless you in this earthly life but simply because you recognize who he is. Edwards would teach that love comes before faith and belief and the justification process and the new divinity theologians took that one step further and they said in your christian life, then, you should do good works. But they referred to it as disinterested benevolence. You dont do good because of the benefit to you, you do it because of demonstrating the love of god because the benefit that somebody else receives from it. To me that epitomizes the impact of the second grade awakening. Ill has on the add theres much more to the second grade awakening. Certainly theres more of a focus on the role of the human being in the justification process, the ability to choose tork, to accept, to believe, for many it was relieving the anxiety of trying to figure out am i part of the predestined . Theres a perfectionism strain coming out of methodism, sometimes referred to as entire zantfication. The belief that after justification you can arrive at a state of relative perfection. For the second grade awakeners meant doing good works, benevolence, then you see the logical step to the third area which is millennialism, the belief that the church is bringing in the kingdom of god and perhaps also that this nation was chosen to bring in that millennium, this nation being the United States which is an interesting topic and runs