Transcripts For CSPAN2 Frances Fitzgerald Discusses The Evangelicals 20170722

Good evening im the president of the atlanta historys center and welcome to tonights lecture. Every get started you may have noticed a few cameras in the room. A couple of rules please turn off all of your devices and also if you are to ask a question at question time everybody has to come to the microphone throughout the entire session so please do that if you are interested in asking a question. We are very excited about tonights program. Its a pleasure to welcome tonights featuring journalist and author so they. This lecture is made possible through the generosity of the livingston foundation. For near two in graduating from Ratcliffe College Frances Fitzgerald came of age as a journalist and vietnam war era to 1972 she published fire in the lake the vietnamese and americans in vietnam a history of vietnam and the United States military involvement in the country. The book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize bancroft prize and the National Book award. She has since authored numerous works from American History and works of publication such as the new yorker new york Time Magazine and rolling stone. Tonight she will discuss her most recent book the evangelicals. She traces the history of protestant and evangelism from its beginnings in the 18th and 19th centuries. She also explores the future of evangelical movement and american going undergoing significant change for the book has received quite critical acclaim for its scope, detail and timeliness for the news york times book review quote anyone curious about protestantism will have a trusted guide in this bankrupt and Pulitzer Prize winner. We need a fairminded overview of this vitally important religious tonight we are very lucky to have reverend doctors david gushee the distinguished professor of christian ethics and director of the center for theology and public life at Mercer University and a widely widely writer 22 books. He he is present at the society of christian ethics and president elect of the American Academy of religion. In addition we are pleased to find out that his pictures in the book as well. So he could not have a better questioner tonight. Please join me in welcoming Frances Fitzgerald and david gushee. [applause] good evening. We would like to thank all of you for being here this evening and all who are watching via cspan. It is good to have such an opportunity to talk about i think as an evangelical myself the most important book on evangelicalism that i think has been written in a very long time. And its majestic in its scope. It covers everything you can possibly cover about evangelicalism. It is the work of many decades of reporting and my happy task this evening is to get the ball rolling by asking as many questions as i can fit in and about 40 minutes and you all will have a chance here in the audience in atlanta to ask some questions yourselves. I will start off this way. Welcome to atlanta. I am sure you enjoyed our as you made her way to the airport. Ill start by asking you this. Frankie, is that okay . What motivated you to do a lot of research on the evangelicals and to decide to devote so much attention to the evangelicals community . Let me preface this by saying the last time i met david, i only met him once i was interviewing him and im not sure that i like this change of roles. [laughter] we are going to push you hard on that frankie, we really really are. In any case i began thinking a long time ago about how important evangelicals were two American Life and in particular to the things that i studied like textbooks like Ronald Reagan and by accident in 1980 i was teaching in lynchburg or kenya as a professor at this liberal arts college. Theres a huge fundamentalist church next door. I went and it was falwells church and as it happened he was just starting the moral majority my editors who have never heard of him before said ride piece about him. He is starting to make news. I wrote less about him really at the time than about his community because i felt that people who belonged to the church were perhaps far away for my own sensibility than anyone i knew and i thought well to try to understand this country you have to understand that. Because a lot of their doctrines and ideology made perfect sense in the context of the 19th century but they seemed completely insane to people today like the apocalyptic prophecies and so on. I set myself the task. Take the story of american evangelicalism to the beginning and america as you do in the book. How does the american evangelicalism began or take off . The first great awakening was started in the 1740s and it began in the church of Jonathan Edwards who was the most establishment kind of figure really. One days when he was preaching you know that sermon of his about the spider hanging over the fire which is always quoted apparently he didnt do that very much. He would always remind people of it. Individuals would come to christ and to god and eventually this church became embroiled with religious sentiment and it turned out this was happening in other parts of the country and around the same time this english preacher who was an anglican by profession came here and he preached up and down the eastern seaboard from city to city and he was such a compelling presence that the great actor David Garrick said he could attract a huge crowd just by pronouncing the word mesopotamia. And it was whitefield who really took over the first great awakening and went from state to state. He was the first celebrity in the way he brought the americans together before the revolutionary war. The next great awakening and by the way these were happening in europe at the same time as the bible. After the revolution say 1810 when it began into the 1840s, but that was a much larger and more emotional affair where methodists and baptists in particular went out and the methodists were horseback riders and they went from town to town and they would give these revivals and there would be tremendous excitement on the frontier. The excitement they grew from town to town is everybody wanted to have this ecstatic experience that these preachers entertained. It was what one called bogley agitations, laughing and falling down and writhing around and so forth. These preachers were very numerous and insisting they preached a very simple bible and immediate conversion and they were very democratic in other ways. They were rebels against the established churches and that was social hierarchy in virginia and new england. They would badly criticize the anglican establishment in virginia and the establishment in boston and one went so far as to say, think it was john leyland, a baptist that there should be no clerical establishment at all but only the relationship between the individual and god. This was a complete disruption but on the other hand sort of a solution to the problem of people leaving their families, going away into the woods starting a fresh and not having those hierarchies depend on anymore. So, they eventually establish their own churches, baptist and presbyterian but for a time it was a really wild moment. Then in the cities and the last thing i will say about this is that in new england anyway they were real reformers. The evangelicals began programs for care for the indigent, for immigrants. They started the Public School system in this country and indeed they were the first mass base for abolition and people always said that William Lloyd garrison was responsible for this. He was really too radical for these religious people and he was an anarchist and a feminist at the same time. That was too far for them so the last base was established by charles and Theodore Welch who is really the hero of the story. Essentially evangelicalism became heart and soul of American Religion as the country spread west and it becomes impossible to understand the development of our country without understanding the spread of evangelicalism and an increasingly dominant role in heartland america as well as big cities everywhere. In the books you talk about what i consider to be a very fateful difference between southern and northern evangelicalism. It is a word about that . Well, the south was rather isolated at the time. It was in Rural Communities very few townsmen much less big cities and it was of course plantations and slaveowners and so forth whereas the north was a good deal more cosmopolitan always. It had catholics and jewish and intellectuals in which the south did not. When there was this break between the two over slavery with the large denominations splitting apart and geographic lines, it didnt really heal until long after the civil war. The south began to develop its own kind of religion whereas the north began be more and more diverse and ideas from europe and so on. Of course in the 1880s the arrival of the darwinian evolution came into the general populace and more criticism of the bible and that of course affect did the clergy a good deal but so a divide starts to open between liberals and conservatives. The liberals start questioning the conditions of their churches as well as Everything Else and they do import new ideas from europe but so do the conservatives who look to england for these apocalyptic prophecies who were simply allaround at the time particularly in england after the french revolution that the world was going to hell and the apocalypse was upon us and various scenarios woven around this. It ended up on the separate trajectory of development from the north and its religion and the north by the late 20th century was splitting apart between what became known as fundamentalist and modernists. A lot of people dont understand that really the religious landscape if you know anything about the religious landscape all we know is our mainline denominations come from the liberal side of the split mainly and what we know of are evangelicals and fundamentalists comes from the conservative side. Could you say a little bit more about that trajectory and what some of the issues were that made the wedge impossible to overcome . Well it really was the great split and protestantism than that period and it happened slowly with the two groups really not talking to each other very much. But just after the First World War when everyone was excited on all kinds of accounts the fundamentalist decided that they could take over the Presbyterian Church and the Baptist Church and so a fundamentalist actually began with those who would do battle royal against the modernists and this effort failed. Only really because there were a lot of people in both denominations who would keep the denominations together in order to missionaries and so forth and to do good and local orders so when this divide came there was a huge splintering and splintering was noted in particular by the press at the scopes trial in 1925 which is a really important moment simply because powell was interpreted and as you remember the place where the great lawyer Clarence Darrow humiliated William Jennings bryan in the debate outside with thousands of people listening and humiliated him because brian was really not a fundamentalist. He was antievolution but he went back to the time before fundamentalism really. He was a democrat and a populist as they rarely were so he hadnt paid much attention to this nitpicking of fundamentalists theology and interpretations of the bible so Clarence Darrow really by nitpicking on his side overcame bryants knowledge of the bible and defense and so on. The press went away from this saying that this was in royal tennessee where to place, thinking that fundamentalists were a bunch of hicks, royal hicks who were eventually going to be runover by the powers of modernity. But in fact the fundamentalist preachers of the day were very educated men who preached in new york city and st. Louis and these churches so so instead of disappearing these fundamentalists pastors, powerful ones started creating their own systems and buries parts of the country, hundreds of churches, their own small denominations poor parts of larger denominations and this went completely unnoticed until after world war ii. Talk about that. The word evangelical gets retrieved after world war ii. Who did that and why did they do it . I say in the book it was billy graham and in a popular way but it was a lot of his friends and mentors like often and others. What became the National Association of evangelicals, was a National Revival and they thought they could get it at the time because just after world war ii america became an extremely religious country. People were going home again and it was a conservative period after the war but also it was an anticommunist thing. People thought they were being true americans if they went to church, any church. It doesnt matter which church you go to but its those characters virtue so anyway billy graham wanting to build this National Revival found that the fundamentalists simply turned people off. They were too bigoted and too narrow and too difficult so he interned cut them off and called himself an evangelical in which he met some people who were not angry at everybody but who had pretty much the same theology but had sort of calmed down, watered down if you want but it was a kinder and gentler fundamentalism. Billy graham gets a lot of attention in your book and probably most people who are watching have some memory of billy graham and billy graham on tv, billy graham doing a revival how about billy graham hanging out with Richard Nixon . Talk about that relationship and the beginning of a politicization of evangelicalism. Dilly graham likes powerful people. He always did and they were extremely helpful to him and the power probe politicians because they would make estate revivals much easier to accomplish and they would be with him and they would get this shining glow of grammar around them and he was seen as even more pork than he was by having senate leaders. Democrats and republicans alike for a long time that he became very attached to Richard Nixon long before nixon ran for president and so that kind of was his downfall because he became too close and he changed his views to nixons abuse really and he started to defend the Nixon Administration so when the vietnam war came to its terrible climax he was among the people to be blamed for it and later for watergate which he did not denounce early enough. As i read your book i thought of billy graham as a foreshadowing novelistic, a foreshadowing of what happens after him. He was one person a largerthanlife figure but by the late 1970s to have an entire organized movement to make a marriage happened between conservative evangelicalism and fundamentalism and the Republican Party which we know is the christian right and a lot of the figures, a lot of the tv back in the day Jerry Falwell all of them largerthanlife across your pages. Start with the birth of the christian right and its trajectory. Well, i think he was preceded by an upsurge of fundamentalism in the south. It was the second upsurge but it was an upsurge in the south and it happened at virtually the same moment and industrialization and urbanization and the first one in the north. As we all know that creates cultural disruptions of all kinds and people coming into the citys who have traditional evangelical beliefs. The upsurge of conservatism in Southern California so all kinds of things and then issues began to appear with most of them having to do with that resentment and the furies of the 60s with feminism protesting against of wars horror women dressing in blue jeans and the guys wearing their hair long and it was huge in the sense that these issues and error enormous added by the Supreme Court which really since the 40s had been trying to make itself a more neutral arbiter between these religious groups and nonreligious people. And it was a bit delayed because the real reaction came in 1980 as opposed to the 60s and at that point falwell with the help of the new right operatives from washington d. C. Have their own conservative pact persuaded him to create the moral majority and structure that a sophisticated way and then it should have included conservative catholics and everybody else he can only attract other fundamentalist. Said he did not really succeed with this Mass Movement but on the of their hands there is a lot of fuss with other Southern Baptists. And then to pay so much attention to these folks. So there seems to be demerger of ideas between the Republican Party and their windows that is the Great Division and where politics begins. So the Republican Party was a center of gravity but who would you say that the of better of the exchange when the of clergy in the activist engaged the politicians . To womens . Or are they played by the politicians . The politicians win that legislation that the christian right wanted passed including george to be bush george w. Bush but that is what fall well understood that in one speech of Ronald Reagan this would do more for his cause the and the speeches of other pastors stowe he went on with reagan that were not moral or religious for example, with the Nuclear Weapon policies and star wars and then to show those evangelicals part of the Republican Party. And then with various reasons and some of those biggest leaders in the south for the preachers were ahead of other people so gradually like onethird of the Republican Party is made up of evangelicals. So inevitably it is politicized and for those evangelicals and they believe that god was king and they simply disappeared because those more political people to accept the air of the press and the media. But what happened eventually was that liberals and completely turned off. In during election time hoodoo nothing about them. How did abortion become the central organizing issue . How did that happen . It is a fascinating story because those evangelicals with those therapeutic abortions that they were called in cases of incest or rape now harm to the mother not only meant physical harm but a psychological harm so that was the enormous gap of possibilities but north evangelical but part of that reason was that even into the 60s with medieval tyranny dictated their ways of thinking so it took a long time for the christian right but to show that abortion was in fact, murder according to catholics. So i would not say until the end of the 80s so those evangelicals but the two parties split apart some democrats being prochoice it was possible to vote for you could not vote for somebody who allows murder. And they became even more catholics them the catholics because it was a part of what they understood as part of that patriarchal family. And even those with the logical reasons. But we know over the years that the Younger Generation to dave the millennial generation is very liberal on issues like homosexuality the firm on abortion. That issue is not going away. And partly what you are describing there is of broadening of the permanent left right tie to religion it is in this protestant conservatives and it is mormons coverage you wish, what ever and so even jewish so it doesnt change. And i think so except what a great sociologists call the god gap people who are very religious are always more republicans fail of the left so it started to cut through all of the denominations. So now you can explain why 81 percent of evangelicals voted for donald trump. [laughter] so very, very briefly you talk about a thought about what that says about the landscape you describe in your book . It says quite a lot. During the primaries all the christian right leaders came mount for ted cruz and mario rubio but never that trump and faction. But it turns out with the guy the gap in business in and voted for job voted for trump. We forgot the name right now with a Southern Baptist. It was before a the last election and. So those issues that our most important to them in voting. So those evangelical pastors with that personality of the candidate with the selection of the Supreme Court justice or abortion exactly what you would imagine with those religious evangelicals. But to say what was important to them what is economic san security. So also it had been shown for some time but those evangelicals voted and that is not what they would have done if they were keeping through their commitments. They voted for all kinds of people because of what they thought would do for them. But not entirely and not be entirely disappointed by george w. Bush and not by donald trump either. And mike pence and betsy de voss, ben carson, rick perry cover the attorney general. Seven these people are definitely christian right and then have been to touch on those major subjects. And then a peas them in many ways. There are so many more questions to ask what we will give you a chance so if you would like to ask a question please come to the microphone asked a brief question dont make a statement otherwise bad things will happen to you. [laughter] since the 1820s or thirties driven by personality or ideology . Both. And then they created that ideology. With the 70s or the 80s to put all kinds of strands of doctrine together and he would read crisscross and also as the head of the Large Corporation with his views of poverty it did not exist to with a very powerful personality. And not to get that extensive treatment what about jim and Tammy Faye Bakker . Jimmy swaggart . Is an interesting group. With that Civilrights Movement in the 60s and its effect. Thats quite right and i should have mentioned at the start with all of those irritations from the christian right Movement Even though people did not mention it at the time there was a huge segregationist at the Southern Baptist convention. It is a mentioned any longer but it is all about morality. Certainly about the Civilrights Movement and the disruption in the hierarchy of society when society was becoming chaotic. So those ahead of the first Baptist Church in to be a major segregationist end began to talk about integration and people that day had to worry about. And even part of this disruption like those on the campus so these parallels raid in without ever having to say a. In with this segregationists schools. But what the operative said the rise of the christian right with the u. S. Taxes regulations and with that certain extent. I was raised in the Evangelical Church and at a crossroads moment so with this moment and then these splits it if feels like that to mean evangelicalism and an overwhelmingly voted for donald trump you have this faction of these evangelicals in and then just working my way out but that feels like very like a reformation and there was no way we could agree. And as far is you are concerned. We did not mention this. But with that christian right pastors in the laypeople. And then the socalled below the belt issues. There is a chapter of the new evangelicals. You definitely want to get to that chapter. [laughter] and then they began to news Service Within the movement begins to develop in reaction to george w. Bush in the obama years. And those who were more like social all justice but my suggestion is there is no putting on the dump d back together. But you see them more regularly every day. So many people but this name doesnt work anymore. And i want to go someplace different. And then to find those preachers simplistic with the body of dr. And [laughter] but those evangelicals and for social reasons thats how you move up in society. And then to visit falwells church a the episcopalians were at the top of the he. And then to take over the consciousness. And i wonder if that spirit could continue or to be like the rest of us. A lot of us remain nine protestants but they were worked by those evangelicals so that made nine line bv 15 of the population in just for the small moments but for obvious reasons and then become more middleclass with fewer baptism. Spirit that is probably true of all religion multiethnic and multicultural religion. Any thing able to ruth assimilate it is hard to see how they have much of a future. We are almost out of time. Thank you for your block. [applause] and now we will have the of book citing signing. [inaudible conversations]. Speeleven way into the publisher of harpers magazine in the proud part owner of a book