American Evangelicals: A Contemporary History of a Mainstream Religious Movement [Paperback]

There may be no group in American society that is more talked about but so little understood as Evangelical Christians. Sometimes dismissed as violent fundamentalists and ignorant flat earthers, few can doubt the political, cultural, and religious significance of the Evangelicals. Barry Hankins puts the Evangelical movement in historical perspective, reaching back to its roots in the Great Awakening of the eighteenth century and leading up to the formative moments of contemporary conservative Protestantism. Taking on key topics such as the standing of science, the authority of scripture, and gender and racial equality, Hankins analyzes what is most essential for us to understand today about this potent movement.Barry Hankins is professor of history and church-state studies at Baylor University. He is author of Uneasy in Babylon: Southern Baptist Conservatives and American Culture and God's Rascal: J. Frank Norris and the Beginnings of the Southern Fundamentalism.

[Hankins] draws from the best secondary sources to explicate the evangelical intersection with theological liberalism and the beginnings of fundamentalism. . . . Recommended. Choice Reviews

In this informed, sympathetic, and critical book, Barry Hankins combats our culture's ongoing tendency to reduce evangelicals to unquestioning devotees of the religious Right, revealing them instead to be part of a movement with a rich and varied history. The book judiciously summarizes the major scholarship from the past generation, filtering it for an audience of nonspecialists. Hankins' book is one of the best and most accessible introductions to the history of American evangelicalism available for undergraduate courses. Kurt Peterson,Journal of American History

Most [evangelical studies] focus on doctrinal or theological standards . . . and the evolving definitional and identity crisis. Barry Hankins's American Evangelicals breaks in some ways with this pattern, offering instead al3Ã