Republicans and Evangelicals I Harold Ockenga - Can Christians Unite? (featuring Joel Carpenter)

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Harold Ockenga was a famous fundamentalist(ish) pastor from Boston. And he had a problem. Liberal Christians had the ear of the government. That meant that military chaplain positions and free radio time were going to liberals, not conservatives. Why shouldn't conservatives have access to the radio waves like theologically liberal Christians? But that would take unity among evangelicals, or, what he called neo-evangelicals.

Neo-evangelicals were evangelicals who didn't separate from the world. In Ockenga's case, this meant maybe going to the movies or an opera. So he, along with other preachers like Billy Graham, founded the National Association of Evangelicals with the hope of uniting neo-evangelicals under one banner.

It didn't work.

The real story, though, sometimes gets lost. The was a big boom in evangelism in the 1940s as WWII wrapped up. Evangelists targeted the youth with organizations like Campus Crusade for Christ springing up left and right. This boom meant that churches swelled in the 1950s, only to begin their long slide a few decades later.

In this episode, Chris speaks with Joel Carpenter, a senior research fellow at Calvin College and author of "Revive Us Again".

Resources Used:

• "Revive Us Again" by Joel Carpenter
• "The Evangelicals" by Frances Fitzgerald
• "The Surprising Work of God" by Garth Rosell
• "Reaganland" by Rick Perlstein
• NPS article about the Bonus Army
• “After the Ivory Tower Falls” book by Will Bunch
• Billy Graham audio
• National Association of Evangelicals "The New Treason"
• Interviews from Harold Ockenga at Wheaton College

Discussion Questions:

• What spurred the revivals of the 1940s?
• How has youth evangelism shaped American society?
• Why is it important to understand the role that cheap higher education played in shaping the 1960s?
• Why did neo-evangelicals feel that they needed access to the radio waves?
• Is unity important to the Christian walk?

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