Church History in Plain Language (Plain Language Series)

by Bruce L. Shelley

This spreading “secular mind” created problems for the evangelism and growth of the American churches. In the early nineties millions concocted their own recipes for moral commitment in a “cultural supermarket. ” Without denominational brand-name loyalty, they were inclined to pick up most anything from the God shelf that seemed to offer a “quick fix.”

The confusion of the clergy in the face of this significant cultural shift was also evident. Some called the ordained ministry America’s “most frustrated profession.” Only one-third of pastors in one survey said they felt their efforts in ministry produced spiritual results in the lives of their parishioners. Clergy stress, illness, and burnout were rampant. Taken together, these signs indicated that “old-time religion” was moving swiftly toward a minority status within the culture.

How did the Age of Self arise? A host of ideas and events contributed to the new way of looking at reality, but two developments stand out: the popular acceptance of psychology and the pervasive use of television.

Psychological studies were creating standards by which middle-and upper-class Americans evaluated themselves. By the late sixties therapeutic thinking had shaped popular vocabulary. It was fashionable and healthy to “hang loose,” be free, and experience “inner space.” It was unhealthy to have “hang-ups” or to be “uptight.” Immoral acts were easily explained by psychological conditions.

During boomer years the ethic of self-denial, including concepts of duty, postponed gratification, and self-restraint, which earlier Americans considered virtues, were no longer advertised or considered valuable. Only rights and opportunities. By stressing the liberation of the self, expressive Americans came to treat every commitment—from marriage and work to politics and religion—not as moral obligations but as mere instruments of personal happiness. And millions “caught the spirit.”

sexuality seemed to fill a particularly critical function in the individual’s quest for self-expression and self-realization. It seemed to be the primary source of “ultimate” significance for the soul. Thus liberation of sexuality from social control became a pervasive social cause. Boundaries, and the security they provide, were gone.

Joshua Meyrowitz revealed the fundamental ways that television had impacted American social behavior, including life in the churches. “By revealing previously backstage areas to audiences,” Meyrowitz wrote, “television has . . . led to a decline in the image and prestige of political leaders, it has demystified adults for children, and demystified men and women for each other. This has led to the widespread rejection of traditional child and adult, male and female, and leader and follower roles.”

Both parties looked at the same country but saw different things. The last quarter of the twentieth century brought the easing of divorce laws, the legalization of abortion, the ending of “censorship,” and the new tolerance for “alternative lifestyles.” America’s academic, artistic, and media elite—often called the New Class—considered these events great advances for human freedom and dignity. But the other half of the nation looked out and saw moral decadence, social degeneration, and national decline.

America’s laws, however, were more and more rooted in a new, secular morality that held, as one commentator observed, that men and women “may create their own moral code, that all voluntary sexual activity is morally neutral and legally permissible, that abortion is a woman’s right, that pornography, like beauty, is only in the eye of the beholder, that suicide and euthanasia are, in some circumstances, logical, legitimate and ‘humane,’ and that if a man wishes to distort his mind with drugs, that is his business alone.”

Resistance to the shifting culture came most notably through political action led by a movement called the Religious Right. A striking example of its influence on American political life came in 1984 during the first televised presidential debate between Republican party candidate Ronald Reagan and Democratic parly candidate Walter Mondale. Mondale referred to televangelist Jerry Falwell no less than three times. Falwell was running for no office. He held no position in the administration. And yet the Democratic candidate for the country’s highest office felt compelled to introduce this Baptist pastor into the debate no less than three times. Why? Jerry Falwell was pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, but after creating a political action group called the Moral Majority in 1979, Falwell rose out of nowhere to become the first prominent spokesman for the so-called Religious Right.

The label stood for a loose coalition of fundamentalist, Pentecostal, evangelical, and Catholic Christians who, driven by concern for the decline in American morality, had become extremely active in the political arena. The core of the movement was a loose alliance of groups led by the Moral Majority. Clustered around an agenda defending traditional moral values and conservative political goals were The Christian Voice, led by Robert Grant; Concerned Women for America, under the leadership of Beverly LaHaye; and the Freedom Council, formed by Pat Robertson, a televangelist who became an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988.

passion of the Religious Right lay in their perception that the United States was falling under the influence of secular humanism and that traditional family values were under attack in the media and the public schools. They instinctively resisted the values of the “Ne...

Dr. James Dobson, enlarged his radio ministry called Focus on the Family into a powerful voice for traditional family values. Perhaps most significant politically, these groups succeeded in educating and mobilizing fundamentalists and Pentecostals, a segment of the American population that had once been politically inactive.