The Development of Evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity in Modern World - Literature review Example

The evolution of Evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity in the modern world can be easily studied by examining its current political, social and religious agendas in those areas of the world where Christianity has maintained its hold; that is, the United Kingdom, United States and Latin America. Both groups, Matthew C. Moen (1989) contends form what is commonly known as the Christian Right. Moen identifies a third and fourth element categorizing them alongside Evangelical and Pentecostal as consisting of “fundamentalists and charismatic Christians” (4). However, this writer holds that fundamentalists and charismaticist are individuals within the two groups whose character traits and personalities are typical of individuals within each group, as opposed to being separate and distinct from the two groups, and therefore for purposes of examining the issue at hand this writer will focus on the two groups, Evangelical and Pentecost, both agreeably identified by Moen as not only forming the Christian right. It can be agreed, too, that Moen’s definition of these groups being conservative and stressing traditional morality, mission work, and individual commitment to Christ, and as interpreting the Bible in a literal sense as opposed to a literary sense (4). This Evangelica/Pentecostal Christian Right began formulating its political game plan in the United States in 1979, and set about expanding their right wing constituency and moving forward in their efforts to gain political clout (32). To accomplish both, they aggressively began creating grass root and Washington, DC based organizations that reflected their largely fundamentalist and charismatic followings. They established The Moral Majority, The Christian Voice, and Religious Roundtable as vehicles for accomplishing the goals of its constituency by way of influencing political policy, at which they became astutely adept (32). Emphasizing traditional core moral values of family, life, and, armed with the large and powerful base of its constituents, they lobbied Washington in the way that legislators had long ago become accustomed to, with cash and a voting block that could mean the difference between a legislator’s re-election, or having to hit the lecture circuit. Then, in 1993 the movement was faced against the double edged sword of Bill Clinton’s presidency, and for the next eight years Bill Clinton served as the place holder for the liberal left. It was, however, Clinton’s politically ill-plagued presidency that seemingly could not shake itself free of the assault against the Moral Majority’s senses that proved to be less sharp a sword than many might have anticipated. For eight years the country remained mired in the tabloid-fodder issues arising out of Bill Clinton’s inability to control his most basic manly urges. A coup for the right, and the left was unable to find a candidate that could cross the mire of the left created by Clinton to ensure political victory. Enter George Bush in 2001. George Bush became the vehicle for the Christian Right’s goal of obscuring the lines of separation between church and state (32). What has begun under the Reagan administration, detoured although not derailed by the Clinton administration, was an agenda back on track under the Bush administration. Bolstered early on by the nation’s reaction to the events of September 11, 2001, and with the support of the Christian Right, which Bush frequently addressed by publicly reiterating his commitment to the core values that group held close to heart; George Bush was successfully elected to a second term as president. Today, in America, the Christian continues to be an effective and powerful force, described by Jende Huang (2003) as “Much to my dismay, the term culture war seems to have mostly fallen from the U.S. lexicon (1).” Rather, Huang cites, quoting Patrick Buchanan (1992 Republican National Convention), “There is a religious war going on in our country for the soul of America (1).” This battle, Huang alleges, is for perhaps the first time in American history a threat to free thinking and charges that Christian fundamentalism is unable to sustain the both their religious agenda and the constitutional rights of Americans (1). Where once the Catholic Church provided a balance, by way of a large gap between the right and left, that gap is now less obvious as a result of the problems the Church has suffered with its image and legal issues. While the Evangelical mission in the United States is one focused on policy making, in Latin America the mission is, according to Edward Idris Cardinal Cassidy, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (1998), one of evangelization and re-evangelization (1). The goal was publicized after an October, 1998 meeting between “Evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics who agreed” who together identified the challenge of the Christian movement in Latin America (1), intimating a joint effort for “the restoration of unity among all Christians,” which might in part be interpreted as the Catholic Church’s efforts at damage control in Latin America where, should it succumb to the same problems and scandals as it has in America, could be potentially even more damaging to the Church. The Catholic Church, Cassidy maintains, is combining its efforts with the Evangelical movement in the spirit of Vatican II, wherein Church officials recognized other Christian faiths as being legitimate, and encouraged its followers to do likewise (1). This move, too, is in keeping with the leadership of Pope John Paul II, who Cassidy quotes as saying, “The relationship which the members of the Catholic Church have established with other Christians since the Council have enabled us to discover what God is bringing about in members of other churches and ecclesiastical communities . . . A vast new field has thus opened up for the whole ecumenical experience (1).” While the Catholic Church has 500 years maintained a hold over Latin America’s religious followers, Latin America makes up 50 percent of the Church’s following, and in lieu of its willingness to now recognize the right and responsibility of non-Catholics in Evangelizing Latin Martin, there are guidelines that protect the Church’s following by imposing rules on the joint efforts and Catholics that are enumerated in guidelines one through four released during the same news conference in October of 1998, when the joint effort was announced (1). The joint effort in Latin America means, too, that Catholics are attempting to reassert their core values as being shared by the Christian Right, whose image has not been battered about as has that of the Church. While for the Christian Right it means expanding its base in Latin America and establishing positioning itself to establish bases of operation for The Moral Majority, and other organizations that will represent the Right’s mission in bringing about change in a still new and evolving Latin American political system that is just emerging from years of civil war. Between the Catholic Church and the Christian Right, Christianity can establish itself as a force against the ever increasing and rapidly spreading influences of Islam that has overtaken both the Catholics and Evangelical Christian Right in other parts of the world. Brian Appleyard (2001) describes the United Kingdom as “. . . set to become the world’s first post-Christian society (1).” Then poses the revealing question, “But what beast, slouching towards Bethlehem, will take over?” The statement and question make it difficult, and worrisome to Christians, in assessing the state of affairs for the Protestant Church in the UK, whose figure-head is Queen Elizabeth. Appleyard quotes the Archbishop of Westminster himself as saying, “Christianity in Britain was ‘almost vanquished.’ (1)” There was, Appleyard notes, barely a notice by the people of the country in response to the Archbishop’s statement, giving credence to a certain late, great rocker’s allusion to a certain band being more famous than God, since less than ten percent of the UK’s population now attend church (1). If Appleyard is correct, then it is an astounding indictment of the country that sent to America its religious heretics, those who wouldn’t conform to rules and notions of the Church of England. It is a wonder, too, given the joint efforts between the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Right in Latin America, and the powerful force of the Christian Right in the US, that both groups do not storm the UK in an effort to regain and reclaim, re-evangelize, Christians. Certainly the Catholic Church, ousted by King Henry VIII in the sixteenth century so that he could divorce one wife and marry another; might want to reassert itself in that country. The problem, of course, that the Catholic Church would be faced with in the UK is that the monarchy controls the Church of England. To that extent, George Wedd (1996) places the blame for demise of faith in squarely in the monarchy’s lap, charging that the royal family has itself been blasé about core moral values and faith (1). The royal family’s lack of commitment to marriage has served, by way of example, to cause Christians to fall away from those core values, that Wedd holds “. . . one of the recurrent themes has been the question whether the Prince could in the fullness of time become ‘Head’ of the Church of England, having so obviously fallen short of that Church’s teaching on the meaning of marriage. It may therefore be useful to examine what the Monarch’s position in the Church really is (1).” Wedd does not put the blame entirely on the royal family, though it is clear he believes that the have contributed to the demise of the church and faith in the UK; he still credits the UK’s other public figures as setting poor examples for the population by committing scandalous adulteries and other behaviors that are not reflective of moral core values (1). In a book written by Shireen T. Hunter (2002), titled Islam, Europe’s Second Religion; The New Social, Cultural and Political Landscape, Hunter points out that it is difficult to assess the number of Islamic faithful in the United Kingdom, since questions about faith are not included on the census that was conducted in 1991; but that one might draw rational and reasonable conclusions from other data, such as a person’s country of origin (52). Thus, drawing from that other data, Hunter suggests that there could be as many as 840,000 Muslims in the UK, most of whom might be considered religiously faithful (52). What does this figure mean to the UK’s Christian population? According to Hunter, there have been as of the publication of her book in 1991, some 10,000 conversions to Islam; most non-white, and less than half who would claim the UK as their country of birth (53). There have arisen offshoots of America’s Nation of Islam, and certain social and economic conditions, Hunt suggests, contribute to the conversions and suggest that the future will see many more such conversions (54). It might strike the fundamental Christian as odd that steps have not been taken to re-evangelize the UK’s Christians. Part of the problem there lies in the fact that the Queen, as of now, is head of the Church of England, and if she does not recognize the problem and take steps to address it, then the people, who in an almost sixteenth century way, seemingly tend to follow that lead. The state of Evangelical Christianity in the UK gives rise to many questions. Would not, then, the solution to re-evangelizing the UK rest with the royal family? Does the Catholic Church and Evangelical movement in the US have a responsibility to rescue Christianity in the UK? Perhaps in a less obvious way than in Latin America, the Catholic Church is taking steps to reclaim its following in the UK. In 1999, Richard John Neuhaus wrote that it was following the death of Princess Di, that certain of the UK’s journalists and historians noticed that a change had taken place in the religious make up of the UK’s population, and that Protestants were missing and Catholics were increasing such that Catholics who, in 1900, once were 5.9 percent of the population, were by 1999 9.8 percent of the population. Nehaus quotes Niall Ferguson as saying, “That Britain has become one-tenth Catholic is a remarkable historical phenomenon. But more remarkable is that it is so much less Protestant than it used to be (1).” What becomes clear here is that there a religious reorganization taking place in the world today, and it will be interesting to see how the political, social and religious distributions come to impact the events that taking place in the world community as that community evolves. Clearly there is much vying and angling for the power and control that can only be gained and wielded through control and leadership of the religious masses. Certainly, Britain should pay attention to this. Works Cited Appleyard, Bryan. "Neither Joy nor Love nor Light?." New Statesman 17 Sept. 2001: 18. Questia. 23 June 2006 . Huang, Jende. "The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America." The Humanist Sept.-Oct. 2003: 44+. Questia. 21 June 2006 . Hunter, Shireen T., ed. Islam, Europes Second Religion : The New Social, Cultural, and Political Landscape /. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002. Questia. 21 June 2006 . Moen, Matthew C. The Christian Right and Congress. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama, 1989. Questia. 21 June 2006 . Wedd, George. "The Church of England and Its Head.." Contemporary Review July 1996: 15+. Questia. 21 June 2006 . Neuhaus, Richard John. "The Future of Once Protestant Britain." First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life Oct. 1999: 78. Questia. 21 June 2006 . Read More