Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 20, 1995 TAG: 9503220031
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARSHALL FISHWICK
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Speaker Newt Gingrich, from Jimmy Carter's Georgia, runs this way and that, pushing his Contract With America. Right-wing televangelists trade prayers for dollars; media stars Sam Donaldson and Bill Moyers run in circles. The race and pace quickens - all roads lead to New Hampshire and 1996.
Just what does this wide array of powerful characters - president, vice president, speaker, Jimmy Carter, Phil Gramm, Jesse Helms, Pat Robertson, Sam Donaldson, Bill Moyers - have in common? They are all Southern Baptists. This largest and most powerful American Protestant denomination, with more than 15 million members, has a strong voice. When it speaks, the nation listens and politicians tremble.
Turn from these superstars to the Congress itself, with 60 freshmen Republicans in the House. Their profile is intriguing. More than half never held an elective office before 1994. Two-thirds were supported and championed by the Christian Coalition, the powerful right wing of the Republican Party. Two-thirds!
This isn't merely "the winds of change." We face a tornado, which sweeps across the nation, ousting the Democrats from their 40-year hold on Congress. A Great Awakening.
Historians could have predicted it. Awakenings and revivals have always shaped our culture. The first European settlers came when the Great Puritan Awakening raged. Puritanism is still a strong force; the King James Bible is still God's literal word for millions. The 1990s upheaval has been transmitted from generation to generation. Jonathan Edwards led our first Awakening in the 1790s, preaching "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Today voters think of those sinners as loafers and bureaucrats, settled comfortably inside the Beltway. Kick the rascals out!
The second Great Awakening, in the Age of Jackson, swept through Appalachia, rooted in the folklife of families moving westward. It preached heavenly rewards and hellish punishments. In the first Great Awakening God was "prayed down;" now He was "worked up," with hell-raising and heart-breaking, singing, stomping and saving. Preachers used the "Baptist whine" and listeners "got the jerks." They still do. In the Roanoke of my childhood, a big tent on Jamison Avenue meant one of three things: a circus, a medicine show or a revival. The tradition continues on revival radio and TV channels.
The Urban Revival after the Civil War transplanted the frontier revival meeting to the newly expanded cities. Popular religion became the adjunct of popular culture. It was both a ritual and a spectator sport. Charles Finney, Henry Ward Beecher and Dwight L. Moody led the way. Big Money came into play. To the Four Gospels a fifth was added - the Gospel of Success. Years later it powered Norman Vincent Peale (Positive Thinking), Robert Schuller (Possibility Thinking) and Detroit's Black Evangelist, the Rev. Ike (Eikerenkoetter).
The Modernist Revival, in the early 20th century, was led by Billy Sunday. He left professional baseball to preach and slide into home plate for Jesus. Billy loved one-liners and paved the way for the next Awakening, which came with radio. Father Charles Coughlin, "The Radio Priest," captivated millions during the Depression. "Coughlin is the biggest thing that ever happened to radio," Fortune magazine noted in 1936. By then, charismatic Aimee Semple McPherson was a famous female Pentecostal, the godmother of female revivalism. In Hollywood, she was star to the stars.
Billy Graham, calling himself "a Western Union boy carrying God's message," became the most popular evangelist in our history. He had one God but two faiths: Christian fundamentalism and Christian Americanism. Wave the flag - don't burn it.
After World War II, the fifth Great Awakening got under way. President Dwight Eisenhower, influenced by Billy Graham, moved from a vague religion of "Americanism" to a definite evangelical faith. "Our government makes no sense unless it is founded in a deeply religious faith," he said. The nation, which liked Ike, agreed.
By 1975, Professor Petty R. D. writes, "the trigger of fundamentalism had been propelled into the Social Unrest phase." The Wall Street Journal estimated that by then the "Electric Church" had an audience of 130 million. Mass media, evangelism and popular culture had formed a new trinity.
It also had new colleges and universities - Oral Roberts University, Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, Herbert W. Armstrong's Ambassador Colleges, and Pat Robertson's CBN University. They train not only preachers but Bible-oriented graduates in law, medicine, business, communication and journalism. When my research carried me to these campuses, I found their buildings, state-of-the-art technology and missionary zeal impressive. They, too, are preparing for the race to come, and they expect to win.
In "The American Religion," Harold Bloom notes that the Mormons, Southern Baptists and Pentecostals are the three most vital ongoing movements today - the religion of our climate. They point to "a purified and amalgamated form of a new American religion." They are a new center of power.
We sensed this in Southern Baptist Jimmy Carter, and even more so in Bill Clinton. Who gave the blessing at Clinton's inauguration in January 1993? The Aging Eagle, evangelist Billy Graham, counselor of every president for half a century. Clinton's address featured biblical references, drawn from the King James version. Maya Angelou's Inauguration poem was in the same vein.
One need not go to Washington to sense the power and depth of today's sixth Great Awakening. A custodian came by my office yesterday. We always exchange greetings and chat. He had two questions: Are you washed in the blood of the lamb? Are you ready for Armageddon? I could not say with him: "Yes, praise Jesus!"
For years I have considered myself part of "mainline American religion," with people like the custodian peripheral.
Times change. I cling to my liberal faith, with its revised Bibles and prayer books. Am I mainline, or is he? Which of us represents the future?
Marshall Fishwick is a professor of humanities and communications studies at Virginia Tech.
by CNB