Derived from the Greek euangelion, which means “good news” or “gospel,” the English word evangelical was typically used to distinguish reformed Protestants, with their revivalist aims, from the staid customs of Catholicism. (Indeed, Martin Luther invoked the Latin translation of the term when breaking from the Roman Catholic Church in the sixteenth century.) During the first so-called Great Awakening in colonial America, clergymen shared a conviction to evangelize the masses—believing and unbelieving alike—with a purifying fervor. By the early nineteenth century, evangelicalism had become “by
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