2. The origins of the book
This book is a product of
the author’s journey to
reconcile two, seemingly
irreconcilable aspects of
his own experience:
• (1) the conservative
evangelicalism in which he
was raised
• (2) the values he
encountered in the student
movements of the 1960’s.
3. Rediscovering an
Evangelical Heritage
• He began a journey to find reformers among early evangelicals who would
restore confidence in his heritage. His search took him back to the 19th
century, during the Second Great Awakening.
• Dayton believed that the Evangelicals of the 1960’s, with their stances against
civil rights and in favor of war, have forgotten a crucial aspect of their own
heritage – the aspect of social reformation.
4. Rediscovering an
Evangelical Heritage
This vision, states Dayton, was betrayed and distorted by twentieth-
century neo-evangelicals. He illuminates the broader origins of American
evangelicalism and how they should move today’s evangelicals towards the
social justice concerns of today's church.
He claims that 19th c. American evangelicals held a more mature vision of
the faith, holding in tension various justice and social issues alongside a
vibrant commitment to evangelical revivalism.
5. By examining the more
radical and prophetic
roots of early
evangelicalism, Dayton
invites the reader to
reexamine their own
“evangelical heritage”.
7. The “Billy Graham”
of his day…
…yet he was different than Billy Graham.
He was both an abolitionist and a
revivalist, “both a NT evangelist and an OT
prophet”.
Finney was studying law, but while studying
the Bible to understand Mosaic legislation,
he had a profound conversion.
The next morning he said to a client,
“Deacon, I have a retainer from the Lord
Jesus Christ to plead his cause and I cannot
plead yours.”
8. Slavery
He spoke strongly to the church
and the issue of slavery. Finney
said that if the church fails to
speak against slavery, “she is
perjured, and the spirit of God
departs from her.”
11. Abolitionism and
Civil Disobedience
Civil Disobedience and the
Oberlin-Wellington Rescue Case
• Oberlin residents freed two
escaped slaves from a jail in
Wellington, Ohio, and guided
them to Canada. They stood trial
for their civil disobedience.
13. New Directions, New Denominations
• Free Methodist Church • Wesleyan Methodists • Church of the Nazarene
14. New Directions, New Denominations
• Christian and
Missionary Alliance
• Salvation Army • Evangelical Free Church
15. Associated Reform Movements
Women’s Rights
• Preaching
• Suffrage (votes for women)
Gospel Rescue Missions
• Ex-convict Jerry McAuley began the most famous
rescue mission, Water Street Mission
• Salvation Army came to America about 1880
16. Associated Reform Movements
Temperance Movement/Alcohol Reform
Working to address both the tendency to
drink (“personal regeneration”) and the
societal structure that promoted alcohol
consumption and abuse (“cleaning up the
environment”)
Prostitution Reform
A “purity crusade” to “abolish”
the “white slave trade” (notice
the retained use of abolitionist
language)
17. Both of these movements were easily swayed into talk
about “personal morality”; it was a larger factor here
than for abolition.
The slaveholder was clearly
the wrongdoer in the institution
of slavery, whereas the drunkard
and the prostitute wereoften seen
as participating in their own vice,
and thus needed to be “rescued.”
18. Whatever Happened to
Evangelicalism?
Dayton identifies four factors that contributed to
the loss of passion for reform that had
previously characterized the 19th century
holiness movement.
19. Institution =
Dilution?
• The (inevitable) institutionalization of
the movements diluted the reform
impulse.
• Dayton acknowledges the difficulty of
maintaining for a long period of time
any movement with the intensity of, for
example, the Oberlin commitment to
the antislavery struggle.
20. Complexity
• The complex social realities (gender,
racial) posed too much of a problem for
the larger, more institutionalized
church. Such issues as incorporation of
freed slaves and the growing roles of
women created mutilayered problems
that the increasingly institutionalized
church was reluctant to engage.
• Also, the Civil War impacted the
movement. For example prior to the
Civil War revivalists started liberal arts
colleges and after the war established
Bible schools.
21. Changing Views
on Millennialism
• The replacement of the optimistic
post-millennialism with a fatalistic
(and often pessimistic) pre-
millennialism.
22. Princeton Theology
• The growth in impact among
evangelicals of the "Old School" of
Presbyterianism, especially as it
found expression in the "Princeton
Theology" with its incarnation of
conservative views.
• There was a reversal of theology by
many as they moved from the
movement of Finney (Oberlin) to the
Princeton theology.
23. Orthodoxy or
Orthopraxis
• The modern type of Evangelicalism
with its roots in Princeton places a
premium on “right doctrine” and
the preservation of a particular
brand of “orthodoxy.”
• Eighteenth and nineteenth century
Evangelicalism, on the other hand,
was more concerned with the
personal appropriation of grace—
with conversion and the “new life”
that follows the “new birth.
• Dayton believes that this theology
was too conservative to produce
new social reform.
25. What are your thoughts?
Were you surprised by this
information?
What are the positives?
What are the negatives?
Do you see any
possibilities for today?
