The American Evangelical Story: A History of the Movement
Modern evangelicalism, the biggest thing in Protestantism since the Reformation, has influenced all Protestant denominations--indeed, it has generated most of them. Sweeney depicts it as a child of English Puritanism and German Pietism, born in the Great Awakening, which, inspired by the ideas of Massachusetts' Jonathan Edwards (1703-58), first broke out in John Wesley's England. Almost immediately, England dispatched the great George Whitefield (1714-70) to ensure that North America awoke, too. From then to the present, Sweeney traces evangelicalism's American lineage, proceeding chronologically. He treats each successive principal development: institution building, missionary endeavors, dealing with the infamous U.S. color line, the impacts of the late-nineteenth-century holiness and Pentecostal movements, and the twentieth-century emergence of fundamentalism and neoevangelicalism (it may surprise some to learn that evangelicalism and fundamentalism aren't synonymous). Definitions are made, distinctions drawn, and major figures sketched--all in nimble, unmannered, jargon-free prose that makes this the ideal book to read after, before, or in tandem with Wendy Murray Zoba'sBeliefnet Guide to Evangelical Christianity(2005).Ray OlsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved