Misplaced Pages

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186-627: In the United States , the term was widely used during the Cold War in an attempt to invoke a unified American identity opposed to communism . The use of the term " Abrahamic religions " to refer to the common grouping of faiths which are attributed to Abraham ( Islam , the Baháʼí Faith , Samaritanism , Druzism , and other faiths in addition to Judaism and Christianity) is also sometimes seen as problematic. The term "Judæo Christian" first appears in

372-562: A " Special Relationship " with the United Kingdom and strong ties with Canada , Australia , New Zealand , the Philippines , Japan , South Korea , Israel , and several European Union countries ( France , Italy , Germany , Spain , and Poland ). The U.S. works closely with its NATO allies on military and national security issues, and with countries in the Americas through

558-592: A "relic". Most importantly the belief of the Judeo-Christian tradition insidiously obscures the real and significant differences between Judaism and Christianity. United States The United States of America ( USA ), commonly known as the United States ( U.S. ) or America , is a country primarily located in North America . It is a federal union of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous states border Canada to

744-471: A "religion of the heart": the ideal that faith was not simply acceptance of propositional truth but was an emotional "commitment of one's whole being to God" in which one's life became dedicated to self-sacrificial ministry. Pietists promoted the formation of cell groups for Bible study , prayer, and accountability. These three traditions were brought together with the First Great Awakening ,

930-446: A Christian ought to respond to an unbelieving world. Many evangelicals urged that Christians must engage contemporary culture directly and constructively, and they began to express reservations about being known to the world as fundamentalists. As Kenneth Kantzer put it at the time, the name fundamentalist had become "an embarrassment instead of a badge of honor". Fuller Theological Seminary founding president Harold Ockenga coined

1116-735: A Jewish perspective). For Christians, the concept of a Judeo-Christian tradition comfortably suggests that Judaism progresses into Christianity—that Judaism is somehow completed in Christianity. The concept of a Judeo-Christian tradition flows from the Christian theology of supersession, whereby the Christian covenant (or Testament) with God supersedes the Jewish one. Christianity, according to this belief, reforms and replaces Judaism. The belief, therefore, implies, first, that Judaism needs reformation and replacement, and second, that modern Judaism remains merely as

1302-604: A convert was admitted to full church membership. In the 1670s and 1680s, Puritan clergy began to promote religious revival in response to a perceived decline in religiosity. The Ulster Scots who immigrated to the American colonies in the early 18th century brought with them their own revival tradition, specifically the practice of communion seasons . Pietism was a movement within the Lutheran and Reformed churches in Europe that emphasized

1488-533: A coordinated, continent-wide military effort. Finally, deteriorating relations between the British military establishment and the colonists, relations that were already less than positive, set the stage for further distrust and dislike of British troops. Following their victory in the French and Indian War, Britain began to assert greater control over local colonial affairs, resulting in colonial political resistance ; one of

1674-522: A decentralized government that operated until 1789. After the British surrender at the siege of Yorktown in 1781 American sovereignty was internationally recognized by the Treaty of Paris (1783), through which the U.S. gained territory stretching west to the Mississippi River, north to present-day Canada, and south to Spanish Florida . The Northwest Ordinance (1787) established the precedent by which

1860-599: A decline in the share of Americans who identify as Protestants (both evangelical and non-evangelical) and a rise in the share of Americans who say they have no religion. According to reports in the New York Times , some evangelicals have sought to expand their movement's social agenda to include reducing poverty, combating AIDS in the Third World , and protecting the environment: "a push to better this world as well as save eternal souls." This has been highly contentious within

2046-541: A doctrine of biblical inerrancy and adopted a dispensationalist theological system for interpreting the Bible. As a result of the fundamentalist–modernist controversy of the 1920s and 1930s, fundamentalists lost control of the Mainline Protestant churches and separated themselves from non-fundamentalist churches and cultural institutions. After World War II , a new generation of conservative Protestants rejected

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2232-543: A favored way of resisting modernism was to prohibit teaching evolution as fact in public schools, a movement that reached a peak in the Scopes trial of 1925. The sting of this public embarrassment led fundamentalists to retreat further into separatism. Protestant modernists criticized fundamentalists for their separatist self-isolation and for their rejection of the Social Gospel that had been developed by Protestant activists in

2418-407: A few prominent industrialists , largely by their formation of trusts and monopolies to prevent competition. Tycoons led the nation's expansion in the railroad , petroleum , and steel industries. The United States emerged as a pioneer of the automotive industry . These changes were accompanied by significant increases in economic inequality , slum conditions , and social unrest , creating

2604-561: A fuller development of Nietzsche's argument can be found in the prior work, On the Genealogy of Morality . The concept of Judeo-Christian ethics or Judeo-Christian values in an ethical (rather than a theological or liturgical) sense was used by George Orwell in 1939, along with the phrase "the Judaeo-Christian scheme of morals". According to theologian Richard L. Rubenstein , the "normative Judaeo-Christian interpretation of history"

2790-644: A global reach. The U.S. is a founding member of the World Bank , Organization of American States , NATO , and the United Nations , as well as a permanent member of the UN Security Council . The first documented use of the phrase "United States of America" is a letter from January 2, 1776. Stephen Moylan , a Continental Army aide to General George Washington , wrote to Joseph Reed , Washington's aide-de-camp , seeking to go "with full and ample powers from

2976-533: A greater role in their own conversion. The Methodists were Arminians and taught that all people could choose salvation. They also taught that Christians could lose their salvation by backsliding or returning to sin . The most influential evangelical of the Second Great Awakening was Charles Grandison Finney . He is best known for preaching from 1825 to 1835 in Upstate New York , which experienced

3162-633: A group of pragmatic Brethren dispensationalists who shared many of his own concerns and approaches to charitable work. After the Great Chicago Fire in 1871 destroyed his church, his home and the Chicago YMCA, Moody left local church work for a new career as a traveling revivalist. Convinced now that the world would be changed not by social work but by Christ's return and the establishment of His millennial kingdom on Earth, Moody abandoned his own previous postmillennialist views. His revivals accelerated

3348-405: A letter by Alexander McCaul which is dated October 17, 1821. The term in this case referred to Jewish converts to Christianity . The term was similarly used by Joseph Wolff in 1829, in reference to a type of church that would observe some Jewish traditions in order to convert Jews. Mark Silk states in the early 19th century the term was "most widely used (in French as well as English) to refer to

3534-546: A literal interpretation of Scripture, identify distinct stages ("dispensations") in God's dealings with humanity, and expect Christ's imminent return to rapture His saints. As B. M. Pietsch notes, their leaders have built intricate new methods of text analysis to "unlock" the Bible's meaning. John Nelson Darby was an austere 19th-century Anglo-Irish Bible teacher and former Anglican clergyman who devised and promoted dispensationalism. This new and controversial method of interpreting

3720-537: A more technical theological perspective came from the Princeton Theologians , such as Charles Hodge , Archibald Alexander , and B. B. Warfield , who strove to defend traditional doctrines they found in the Bible against rival claims from other learned scholars, including such claims that were based on higher criticism . By the 1890s, most American Protestants belonged to evangelical denominations, except for high church Episcopalians and German Lutherans. In

3906-451: A much-publicized wartime tragedy, the sinking of the Dorchester , the ship's multi-faith chaplains gave up their lifebelts to evacuate seamen and stood together "arm in arm in prayer" as the ship sank. A 1948 postage stamp commemorated their heroism with the words: "interfaith in action." In the 1950s, "a spiritual and cultural revival washed over American Jewry" in response to the trauma of

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4092-531: A new form of Protestantism that emphasized, according to historian Thomas S. Kidd , " seasons of revival , or outpourings of the Holy Spirit , and converted sinners experiencing God's love personally " [emphasis in original]. Evangelicals believed in the "new birth"—a discernible moment of conversion—and believed that it was normal for a Christian to have assurance of faith . While the Puritans had also believed in

4278-583: A period of heightened, overt racism following Reconstruction, a time often called the nadir of American race relations . A series of Supreme Court decisions, including Plessy v. Ferguson , emptied the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of their force, allowing Jim Crow laws in the South to remain unchecked, sundown towns in the Midwest, and segregation in communities across the country , which would be reinforced by

4464-542: A popular one-volume reference used widely by independent Evangelicals in the United States. It did much to popularize dispensationalism early in the 20th century, as Evangelicals sought to make sense of calamities like World War I , the 1918 influenza pandemic , the 1929 stock market crash , the Great Depression and Dust Bowl in the 1930s, and World War II . By 1945, more than 2 million copies had been published in

4650-560: A population boom after the Erie Canal opened in 1825. Though ordained by the Presbyterian Church, Finney deviated from traditional Calvinism. Finney taught that neither revivals nor conversion occurred without human effort. While divine grace is necessary to persuade people of the truth of Christianity, God does not force salvation upon people. Unlike Edwards, who described revival as a "surprising work of God", Finney taught that "revival

4836-488: A prominent leader in the early 1960s. The Great Society plan of President Lyndon Johnson 's administration resulted in groundbreaking and broad-reaching laws, policies and a constitutional amendment to counteract some of the worst effects of lingering institutional racism . The counterculture movement in the U.S. brought significant social changes, including the liberalization of attitudes toward recreational drug use and sexuality . It also encouraged open defiance of

5022-824: A reaction to the 1960s counterculture and the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, many white evangelicals became politically active and involved in the Christian right , which became an important voting bloc in the Republican Party . Recently, however, observers such as journalist Frances FitzGerald have noted that since 2005 the influence of the Christian right among evangelicals has been in decline. Though less visible, some evangelicals identify as progressive evangelicals . Many scholars have adopted historian David Bebbington 's definition of evangelicalism. According to Bebbington, evangelicalism has four major characteristics. These are conversionism (an emphasis on

5208-560: A regular part of church life, and devoted resources to evangelizing the western frontier. Itinerant ministers known as circuit riders traveled hundreds of miles each year to preach and serve scattered congregations. The Methodists took a democratic and egalitarian approach to ministry, allowing poor and uneducated young men to become circuit riders. The Baptists also expanded rapidly. Like the Methodists, Baptists also sent out itinerant ministers, often with little education. The theology behind

5394-518: A sense of manifest destiny . The Missouri Compromise attempted to balance the desire of northern states to prevent the expansion of slavery into new territories with that of southern states to extend it, admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. It further prohibited slavery in all other lands of the Louisiana Purchase north of the 36°30′ parallel . As Americans expanded further into land inhabited by Native Americans,

5580-603: A sense of American identity as well. Men who otherwise never left their own colony now traveled across the continent to fight alongside men from decidedly different backgrounds but who were no less "American". British officers trained American officers for battle, most notably George Washington ; these officers would lend their skills and expertise to the colonists' cause during the American Revolutionary War to come. In addition, colonial legislatures and officials found it necessary to cooperate intensively in pursuit of

5766-455: A series of revival meetings. A tall, handsome, spellbinding preacher from North Carolina with a piercing gaze, Graham aimed to fill his listeners first with dread that they were lost sinners in a world rushing headlong into disaster, then with a deep longing to turn their lives around, trust Jesus, and be saved. The crusade started on September 25, 1949, and it was scheduled to last three weeks, from September 25 to October 17. Two days before

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5952-625: A series of revivals in Britain and its American Colonies during the 1730s and 1740s. The Awakening began within the Congregational churches of New England. In 1734, Jonathan Edwards ' preaching on justification by faith instigated a revival in Northampton, Massachusetts . Earlier Puritan revivals had been brief, local affairs, but the Northampton revival was part of a larger wave of revival that affected

6138-478: A world in upheaval. No one in the U.S. voiced fears for the world's future with more fervor than evangelical and fundamentalist preachers. A key element in their preaching had always been that the Second Coming of Christ could happen at any moment and that everyone must be ready for the end of the world. In September 1949, 30-year-old evangelist Billy Graham set up circus tents in a Los Angeles parking lot for

6324-401: A year). Juvenile correctional facilities are operated by local or state governments and serve as longer-term placements for any minor adjudicated as delinquent and ordered by a judge to be confined. As of January 2023, the United States has the sixth-highest per capita incarceration rate in the world—531 people per 100,000 inhabitants—and the largest prison and jail population in

6510-571: Is believed to be the first widespread culture in the Americas. Over time, indigenous North American cultures grew increasingly sophisticated, and some, such as the Mississippian culture , developed agriculture , architecture , and complex societies . In the post-archaic period , the Mississippian cultures were located in the midwestern , eastern , and southern regions, and the Algonquian in

6696-492: Is known as the presidential system , in contrast to the parliamentary system , where the executive is part of the legislative body. Many countries around the world imitated this aspect of the 1789 Constitution of the United States , especially in the Americas. The Constitution is silent on political parties. However, they developed independently in the 18th century with the Federalist and Anti-Federalist parties. Since then,

6882-499: Is not a miracle" but "the result of the right use of the appropriate means." Finney emphasized several methods to promote revival that became known as the "new measures" (even though they were not new but had already been in use among the Methodists): mass advertising, protracted revival meetings, allowing women to speak and testify in revival meetings, and the mourner's bench where potential converts sat to pray for conversion. Finney

7068-438: Is now the United States experienced conflicts with Native Americans, they also engaged in trade, exchanging European tools for food and animal pelts. Relations ranged from close cooperation to warfare and massacres. The colonial authorities often pursued policies that forced Native Americans to adopt European lifestyles, including conversion to Christianity. Along the eastern seaboard, settlers trafficked African slaves through

7254-558: Is seen as the instrument through which prophecies of the end times are fulfilled. The use of the term "Judeo-Christian" in 21st century discourse has been criticized for equating two different faiths and being a vector for Islamophobia by exclusion. The Jewish community's attitude towards the concept has been mixed. In the 1930s, "In the face of worldwide anti-semitic efforts to stigmatize and destroy Judaism, influential Christians and Jews in America labored to uphold it, pushing Judaism from

7440-542: Is the federal agency charged with addressing most environmental-related issues . The idea of wilderness has shaped the management of public lands since 1964, with the Wilderness Act . The Endangered Species Act of 1973 provides a way to protect threatened and endangered species and their habitats. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service implements and enforces the Act. In 2024, the U.S. ranked 34th among 180 countries in

7626-468: Is to treat human suffering, such as a plague, as punishment for human guilt. According to historian K. Healan Gaston, the term became a descriptor of the U.S. in the 1930s, when the country sought to forge a unified cultural identity in an attempt to distinguish itself from fascism and communism in Europe. Becoming part of the American civil religion by the 1940s, the term rose to greater prominence during

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7812-526: The Allies of World War I , helping to turn the tide against the Central Powers . In 1920, a constitutional amendment granted nationwide women's suffrage . During the 1920s and '30s, radio for mass communication and the invention of early television transformed communications nationwide. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 triggered the Great Depression , which President Franklin D. Roosevelt responded to with

7998-725: The American Tract Society and the American Bible Society . This network of social reform organizations is referred to as the Benevolent Empire . Postmillennialism also led to an increase in missionary work. Many of the major missionary societies in the U.S. were founded around this time . Missionary efforts by northern evangelicals included the influential American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), founded in 1810, which sent missionaries overseas, placed missionaries with American Indian tribes in

8184-548: The Atlantic slave trade . The original Thirteen Colonies that would later found the United States were administered as possessions of Great Britain , and had local governments with elections open to most white male property owners . The colonial population grew rapidly, eclipsing Native American populations; by the 1770s, the natural increase of the population was such that only a small minority of Americans had been born overseas. The colonies' distance from Britain allowed for

8370-773: The Bering land bridge more than 12,000 years ago, and formed various civilizations and societies . British colonization led to the first settlement of the Thirteen Colonies in Virginia in 1607. Clashes with the British Crown over taxation and political representation sparked the American Revolution , with the Second Continental Congress formally declaring independence on July 4, 1776. Following its victory in

8556-559: The Christian right . However, not every conservative Protestant identifies as evangelical, nor are all evangelicals political conservatives. Scholars have found it useful to distinguish among different types of evangelicals. One scheme by sociologist James Davison Hunter identifies four major types: the Baptist tradition, the Holiness and Pentecostal tradition, the Anabaptist tradition, and

8742-571: The Church of the Nazarene , from 88 to 200. The post-war period also saw growth of the ecumenical movement and the founding of the World Council of Churches (1948), which was generally regarded with suspicion by the evangelical community. During the 1950s, the number of church members in America grew from 64.5 million to 114.5 million. By 1960, more than 60% of the nation belonged to a church. Following

8928-502: The Cold War , especially when it was used to express opposition to communist atheism . In the 1970s, the term became particularly associated with the American Christian right . It is sometimes employed in a separate context in political attempts to restrict immigration and LGBT rights . The rise of antisemitism in the 1930s led concerned Protestants, Catholics, and Jews to take steps to increase mutual understanding and lessen

9114-528: The Confessional tradition ( evangelical Anglicans , pietistic Lutherans, and evangelicals within the Reformed churches). Ethicist Max Stackhouse and historians Donald W. Dayton and Timothy P. Weber divide evangelicalism into three main historical groupings. The first, called "Puritan" or classical evangelicalism, seeks to preserve the doctrinal heritage of the 16th century Protestant Reformation , especially

9300-514: The Delmarva Peninsula , for example, over a third of Methodists were black. In the 1790s, evangelical influence on smaller groups such as Quakers, Lutherans, and the Dutch and German Reformed was still limited. Because of cultural and language barriers, the Dutch and German churches were not a major part of this era's evangelical revivals. In the 19th century, evangelicalism expanded as a result of

9486-482: The Enlightenment's positive view of human potential. This postmillennial optimism inspired a number of social reform movements among northern evangelicals, including temperance (as teetotalism became "a badge of honor" for evangelicals), abolitionism, prison reform, and educational reform. They launched a campaign to end dueling . They built asylums for the physically disabled and mentally ill, schools for

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9672-529: The Environmental Performance Index . The country joined the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2016 and has many other environmental commitments. The United States is a federal republic of 50 states and a separate federal capital district, Washington, D.C. It also asserts sovereignty over five unincorporated territories and several uninhabited island possessions . The U.S. is

9858-629: The Erie Canal —the revival was mainly led by Congregationalists and Presbyterians, but Baptists and Methodists were also involved. Unlike the East Coast, where revivals tended to be quieter and more solemn, western revivals tended to be emotional and dramatic. Presbyterian minister James McGready led the Revival of 1800 , also known as the Red River Revival, in southwestern Kentucky's Logan County . It

10044-493: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Marshals Service have national jurisdiction and specialized duties, such as protecting civil rights , national security and enforcing U.S. federal courts ' rulings and federal laws. State courts conduct most civil and criminal trials, and federal courts handle designated crimes and appeals of state court decisions . There is no unified "criminal justice system" in

10230-730: The Fundamentalist–Modernist split of the early 20th century. Fundamentalists emphasize certain "fundamental" beliefs against modernist criticism and often use an apocalyptic , premillennialist interpretation of the Bible. These three categories are more fluid than Hunter's, so an individual could identify with only one, any two, or all three. John C. Green , a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life , used polling data to separate evangelicals into three broad camps, which he labels as traditionalist , centrist and modernist : The roots of American evangelicalism lie in

10416-637: The Great Lakes , Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico . British colonization of the East Coast began with the Virginia Colony (1607) and Plymouth Colony (1620). The Mayflower Compact and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut established precedents for representative self-governance and constitutionalism that would develop throughout the American colonies. While European settlers in what

10602-543: The Great Lakes region and along the Eastern Seaboard , while the Hohokam culture and Ancestral Puebloans inhabited the southwest . Native population estimates of what is now the United States before the arrival of European immigrants range from around 500,000 to nearly 10 million. Christopher Columbus began exploring the Caribbean for Spain in 1492, leading to Spanish-speaking settlements and missions from Puerto Rico and Florida to New Mexico and California . France established its own settlements along

10788-421: The House of Representatives , a lower house based on population; and the Senate , an upper house based on equal representation for each state. Federalism provides substantial autonomy to the 50 states, while the country's political culture promotes liberty , equality , individualism , personal autonomy , and limited government . One of the world's most developed countries , the United States has had

10974-426: The Midwest . At the same time, about one million French Canadians migrated from Quebec to New England . During the Great Migration , millions of African Americans left the rural South for urban areas in the North. Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867. The Compromise of 1877 effectively ended Reconstruction and white supremacists took local control of Southern politics . African Americans endured

11160-553: The National Park Service and other agencies. About 28% of the country's land is publicly owned and federally managed, primarily in the Western States . Most of this land is protected , though some is leased for commercial use, and less than one percent is used for military purposes. Environmental issues in the United States include debates on non-renewable resources and nuclear energy , air and water pollution , biodiversity , logging and deforestation , and climate change . The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

11346-437: The New Deal , a series of sweeping programs and public works projects combined with financial reforms and regulations . All were intended to protect against future economic depressions. Initially neutral during World War II , the U.S. began supplying war materiel to the Allies of World War II in March 1941 and entered the war in December after the Empire of Japan 's attack on Pearl Harbor . The U.S. developed

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11532-508: The Organization of American States and the United States–Mexico–Canada Free Trade Agreement . In South America, Colombia is traditionally considered to be the closest ally of the United States. The U.S. exercises full international defense authority and responsibility for Micronesia , the Marshall Islands , and Palau through the Compact of Free Association . It has increasingly conducted strategic cooperation with India , but its ties with China have steadily deteriorated. Since 2014,

11718-539: The Pentium microprocessor in accordance with Moore's law , rechargeable lithium-ion batteries , the first gene therapy trial, and cloning either emerged in the U.S. or were improved upon there. The Human Genome Project was formally launched in 1990, while Nasdaq became the first stock market in the United States to trade online in 1998. In the Gulf War of 1991, an American-led international coalition of states expelled an Iraqi invasion force that had occupied neighboring Kuwait . The September 11 attacks on

11904-462: The Second Great Awakening (1790s–1840s). The revivals of the Second Great Awakening influenced all the major Protestant denominations, and turned most American Protestants into evangelicals. From the 1790s until the 1860s, evangelicals were the most influential religious leaders in the United States. For context, the U.S. population was 2.6 million in 1776. By 1860 it had grown to 31.5 million. Between 1790 and 1840, over four million people (more than

12090-464: The Southeastern United States , and had established missions among the Cherokee , for example, by 1820. The ABCFM fought against U.S. Indian removal policies in general and against the Indian Removal Act of 1830 in particular. In 1836 the ABCFM sent Marcus and Narcissa Whitman west from Upstate New York to preach to the Cayuse people in Oregon Country . The Third Great Awakening that began in 1857–1858 also gathered much of its strength from

12276-418: The Soviet Union's collapse and the end of the Cold War in 1991, the U.S. emerged as the world's sole superpower , wielding significant geopolitical influence globally . The U.S. national government is a presidential constitutional federal republic and liberal democracy with three separate branches : legislative , executive , and judicial . It has a bicameral national legislature composed of

12462-399: The Spanish–American War . (The Philippines was granted full independence from the U.S. on July 4, 1946, following World War II. Puerto Rico and Guam have remained U.S. territories.) American Samoa was acquired by the United States in 1900 after the Second Samoan Civil War . The U.S. Virgin Islands were purchased from Denmark in 1917. The United States entered World War I alongside

12648-615: The Welsh Methodist revival , the Azusa Street Revival in 1906 had begun the spread of Pentecostalism in North America. The Charismatic movement began in the 1960s and led to Pentecostal theology and practices being introduced into many mainline denominations. Charismatic groups such as Newfrontiers and the Association of Vineyard Churches trace their roots to this period. A 2018 report of polls conducted from 2003 to 2017 of 174,485 random-sample telephone interviews by ABC News and The Washington Post show significant shifts in U.S. religious identification in those 15 years, including

12834-399: The cotton gin made the institution increasingly profitable for Southern elites . This sectional conflict regarding slavery culminated in the American Civil War (1861–1865). Eleven slave states seceded and formed the Confederate States of America , while the other states remained in the Union . War broke out in April 1861 after the Confederates bombarded Fort Sumter . After

13020-413: The fall of communism and the collapse of the Soviet Union , which marked the end of the Cold War and left the United States as the world's sole superpower . The 1990s saw the longest recorded economic expansion in American history , a dramatic decline in U.S. crime rates , and advances in technology . Throughout this decade, technological innovations such as the World Wide Web , the evolution of

13206-445: The largest nominal GDP since about 1890 and accounted for over 15% of the global economy in 2023. It possesses by far the largest amount of wealth of any country and has the highest disposable household income per capita among OECD countries. The U.S. ranks among the world's highest in economic competitiveness , productivity , innovation , human rights , and higher education . Its hard power and cultural influence have

13392-496: The new birth ), biblicism (an emphasis on the Bible as the supreme religious authority), activism (an emphasis on individual engagement in spreading the gospel ), and crucicentrism (an emphasis on Christ's sacrifice on the cross as the heart of true religion). However, this definition has been criticized for being so broad as to include all Christians. Historian Molly Worthen writes "history—rather than theology or politics—is

13578-401: The northern United States were strong advocates of reform. They were involved in the temperance movement and supported the abolition of slavery , in addition to working toward education and criminal justice reform . In the southern United States , evangelicals split from their northern counterparts on the issue of slavery, establishing new denominations that opposed abolition and defended

13764-695: The 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord , igniting the American Revolutionary War . At the Second Continental Congress , the colonies appointed George Washington commander-in-chief of the Continental Army , and created a committee that named Thomas Jefferson to draft the Declaration of Independence . Two days after passing the Lee Resolution to create an independent nation the Declaration

13950-516: The 1775–1783 Revolutionary War , the country continued to expand westward across North America , resulting in the dispossession of native inhabitants . As more states were admitted , a North–South division over slavery led to the secession of the Confederate States of America , which fought states remaining in the Union in the 1861–1865 American Civil War . With the victory and preservation of

14136-500: The 18th century marked the rise of evangelical religion in colonial America . As the revival spread throughout the Thirteen Colonies , evangelicalism united Americans around a common faith. The Second Great Awakening of the early 19th century led to what historian Martin Marty calls the "Evangelical Empire", a period in which evangelicals dominated U.S. cultural institutions, including schools and universities. Evangelicals of this era in

14322-548: The 1950s and 1960s the simplest definition of an evangelical was "anyone who likes Billy Graham ". During that period, most people who self-identified with the evangelical movement were affiliated with organizations that had some connection to Graham. It can also be defined narrowly as a movement centered around organizations such as the National Association of Evangelicals and Youth for Christ . News media often conflate evangelicalism with "conservative Protestantism" or

14508-515: The 2010s, political polarization in the country increased between liberal and conservative factions. This polarization was capitalized upon in the January 2021 Capitol attack , when a mob of insurrectionists entered the U.S. Capitol and sought to prevent the peaceful transfer of power in an attempted self-coup d'état . The United States is the world's third-largest country by total area behind Russia and Canada. The 48 contiguous states and

14694-477: The 21st century, interest in and a positive attitude towards America's Judeo-Christian tradition has become mainstream among evangelicals and (to some extent) the political conservative movement in the United States. In contrast, by the 1970s, mainline Protestant denominations and the National Council of Churches were more supportive of Palestinians than Israel. Natan Sharansky observed in 2019, that for

14880-631: The American West have an alpine climate . The climate is arid in the Southwest, Mediterranean in coastal California , and oceanic in coastal Oregon , Washington , and southern Alaska . Most of Alaska is subarctic or polar . Hawaii , the southern tip of Florida and U.S. territories in the Caribbean and Pacific are tropical . States bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes, and most of

15066-548: The Bible, which does not reconcile easily with findings from recent mainstream archaeological and textual research, was incorporated into the development of modern Evangelicalism. First taught in the 1830s by Darby and the Plymouth Brethren in England, dispensationalism was introduced to American evangelical leaders during Darby's missionary journeys to the U.S. and Canada in the 1860s and 1870s. The Niagara Bible Conference

15252-517: The Congregational and Presbyterian churches over support for the revival movement, between Old and New Lights , leading to the Old Side–New Side controversy . Ultimately, the evangelical New Lights became the larger faction among both Congregationalists and Presbyterians. The New England theology , based on Edwards' work, would become the dominant theological outlook within Congregational churches. In New England, radical New Lights broke away from

15438-545: The Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists. In the 1770s and 1780s, the Baptists and Methodists had experienced dramatic growth. In 1770, there were only 150 Baptist and 20 Methodist churches, but in 1790 there were 858 Baptist and 712 Methodist churches. These two evangelical denominations were most successful in the southern states and along the western frontier . They also appealed to African slaves ; on

15624-470: The Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The term "United States" and the initialism "U.S.", used as nouns or as adjectives in English, are common short names for the country. The initialism "USA", a noun, is also common. "United States" and "U.S." are the established terms throughout the U.S. federal government , with prescribed rules. In English, the term "America" rarely refers to topics unrelated to

15810-557: The District of Columbia occupy a combined area of 3,119,885 square miles (8,080,470 km ). The coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way to inland forests and rolling hills in the Piedmont plateau region. The Appalachian Mountains and the Adirondack massif separate the East Coast from the Great Lakes and the grasslands of the Midwest . The Mississippi River System ,

15996-562: The Elder concluded that major military resources needed to be devoted to North America to win the war against France. For the first time, the continent became one of the main theaters of what could be termed a " world war ". The British colonies' position as an integral part of the British Empire became more apparent during the war, with British military and civilian officials becoming a more significant presence in American life. The war increased

16182-520: The First Great Awakening convinced many evangelicals that the millennial kingdom was already being established before Christ returned, a belief known as postmillennialism . During the Second Great Awakening, postmillennialism (with its expectation that society would become progressively more Christianized) became the dominant view, since it complemented the Arminian emphasis on self-determination and

16368-432: The First Great Awakening had been largely Calvinist . Calvinists taught predestination and that God only gives salvation to a small group of the elect and condemns everyone else to hell . The Calvinist doctrine of irresistible grace denied to humans free will or any role in their own salvation. The Second Great Awakening was heavily influenced by Arminianism , a theology that allows for free will and gives humans

16554-487: The Holocaust. American Jews became more confident in their desire to be identified as different. Two notable books addressed the relationship between contemporary Judaism and Christianity, Abba Hillel Silver 's Where Judaism Differs and Leo Baeck 's Judaism and Christianity , both motivated by an impulse to clarify Judaism's distinctiveness "in a world where the term Judeo-Christian had obscured critical differences between

16740-664: The January 1863 Emancipation Proclamation , many freed slaves joined the Union army . The war began to turn in the Union's favor following the 1863 Siege of Vicksburg and Battle of Gettysburg , and the Confederacy surrendered in 1865 after the Union's victory in the Battle of Appomattox Court House . The Reconstruction era followed the war. After the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln , Reconstruction Amendments were passed to protect

16926-575: The Moody Bible Institute set the pace, providing a wide variety of fundamentalist outreach services, from guest speakers and extension courses to Bible conferences, magazines and radio programs. During and after World War II, white evangelicals formed new organizations and expanded their vision to include the entire world. There was a great expansion of Evangelical activity within the United States, "a revival of revivalism." The doctrine of dispensationalism, with its intense focus on end times and

17112-514: The Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed churches in the middle colonies as well. There the Reformed minister Theodore Frelinghuysen and Presbyterian minister Gilbert Tennent led revivals. The English evangelist George Whitefield was responsible for spreading the revivals through all the colonies. An Anglican priest, Whitefield had studied at Oxford University prior to ordination, and there he befriended John Wesley and his brother Charles ,

17298-554: The Reformed tradition. Classical evangelicals emphasize absolute divine sovereignty , forensic justification , and " literalistic " inerrancy . The second, pietistic evangelicalism, originates from the 18th-century pietist movements in Europe and the Great Awakenings in America. Pietistic evangelicals embrace revivalism and a more experiential faith, emphasizing conversion , sanctification , regeneration , and healing . The third, fundamentalist evangelicalism, results from

17484-595: The Rocky Mountains, the Yellowstone Caldera , is the continent's largest volcanic feature. In 2021, the United States had 8% of global permanent meadows and pastures and 10% of cropland. With its large size and geographic variety, the United States includes most climate types. East of the 100th meridian , the climate ranges from humid continental in the north to humid subtropical in the south. The western Great Plains are semi-arid . Many mountainous areas of

17670-643: The Spirit . Similar responses had occurred in other revivals, but they were more intense at Cane Ridge. This revival was the origin of the Stone-Campbell Movement , from which the Churches of Christ and Disciples of Christ denominations originate. During the Second Great Awakening, the Methodist Episcopal Church was most successful at gaining converts. It enthusiastically adopted camp meetings as

17856-625: The U.S. has become a key ally of Ukraine ; it has also provided the country with significant military equipment and other support in response to Russia's 2022 invasion . The president is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces and appoints its leaders, the secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff . The Department of Defense , which is headquartered at the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., administers five of

18042-661: The U.S. territories." Despite disparate systems of confinement, four main institutions dominate: federal prisons , state prisons , local jails, and juvenile correctional facilities . Federal prisons are run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and hold people who have been convicted of federal crimes, including pretrial detainees. State prisons, run by the official department of correction of each state, hold sentenced people serving prison time (usually longer than one year) for felony offenses. Local jails are county or municipal facilities that incarcerate defendants prior to trial; they also hold those serving short sentences (typically under

18228-497: The United States and other English-speaking countries. Over three million volumes (250,000 sets) were sent out. Dispensationalism led fundamentalist evangelicals to see the world as a battleground in a deadly conflict between God and the Devil that would sweep all unbelievers to perdition very soon, so that they must focus on saving souls, with reform of society as a strictly secondary concern. Adoption of this "lifeboat" theology also made

18414-461: The United States and the peaceful transfer of power , respectively. The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 from France nearly doubled the territory of the United States. Lingering issues with Britain remained , leading to the War of 1812 , which was fought to a draw. Spain ceded Florida and its Gulf Coast territory in 1819. In the late 18th century, American settlers began to expand westward , many with

18600-803: The United States entered the Cold War, where geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union led the two countries to dominate world affairs . The U.S. utilized the policy of containment to limit the USSR's sphere of influence, and prevailed in the Space Race , which culminated with the first crewed Moon landing in 1969. Domestically, the U.S. experienced economic growth , urbanization , and population growth following World War II . The civil rights movement emerged, with Martin Luther King Jr. becoming

18786-599: The United States has operated as a de facto two-party system , though the parties in that system have been different at different times. The two main national parties are presently the Democratic and the Republican . The former is perceived as relatively liberal in its political platform while the latter is perceived as relatively conservative . In the American federal system , sovereign powers are shared between two levels of elected government: national and state. People in

18972-572: The United States in 2001 by the pan-Islamist militant organization al-Qaeda led to the war on terror , and subsequent military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq . The cultural impact of the attacks was profound and long-lasting. The U.S. housing bubble culminated in 2007 with the Great Recession , the largest economic contraction since the Great Depression. Coming to a head in

19158-578: The United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the Revolutionary War effort. The first known public usage is an anonymous essay published in the Williamsburg newspaper, The Virginia Gazette , on April 6, 1776. By June 1776, the "United States of America" appeared in the Articles of Confederation and the Declaration of Independence . The Second Continental Congress adopted

19344-646: The United States, slavery was abolished nationally . By 1900, the country had established itself as a great power , a status solidified after its involvement in World War I . After Japan 's attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the U.S. entered World War II . Its aftermath left the U.S. and the Soviet Union as the world's two superpowers and led to the Cold War , during which both countries struggled for ideological dominance and international influence . Following

19530-532: The United States, despite the usage of "the Americas " as the totality of North and South America. "The States" is an established colloquial shortening of the name, used particularly from abroad; "stateside" is the corresponding adjective or adverb. The first inhabitants of North America migrated from Siberia across the Bering land bridge about 12,000 years ago; the Clovis culture , which appeared around 11,000 BC,

19716-605: The United States, except Iran , North Korea , and Bhutan . Though Taiwan does not have formal diplomatic relations with the U.S., it maintains close unofficial relations. The United States regularly supplies Taiwan with military equipment to deter potential Chinese aggression. Its geopolitical attention also turned to the Indo-Pacific when the United States joined the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue with Australia, India, and Japan. The United States has

19902-521: The United States. Evangelicals also launched a network of independent Bible institutes which soon became the nucleus for the spread of American dispensationalism. Notable examples include the Moody Bible Institute and the Bible Institute of Los Angeles . By the early 1930s there were as many as fifty such Bible institutes serving fundamentalist constituencies. In the late 19th century,

20088-509: The United States. The American prison system is largely heterogenous, with thousands of relatively independent systems operating across federal, state, local, and tribal levels. In 2023, "these systems [held] almost 2 million people in 1,566 state prisons, 98 federal prisons, 3,116 local jails, 1,323 juvenile correctional facilities, 181 immigration detention facilities, and 80 Indian country jails, as well as in military prisons , civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in

20274-403: The broader culture, emphasized missionary activity and individual conversion, and taught strict adherence to particular religious doctrines." Mainline Protestants are described as having "an accommodating stance toward modernity, a proactive view on issues of social and economic justice, and pluralism in their tolerance of varied individual beliefs." Historian George Marsden writes that during

20460-538: The business community's values. He helped forge the union between the evangelical mind and the business mind that came to be a hallmark of later popular revivalists. Moody's religious individualism fit neatly with the rugged individualism of Gilded Age businessmen. Moody radiated optimism when he spoke about how Christian conversion would impact a poor man's life. He believed Christian conversion would make lazy, poor men into energetic men who would then work hard and prosper. At his revival meetings Moody would look around at

20646-572: The city of Chicago and active in the Sunday School movement and Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) from 1858 in his early ministry, Moody had relentlessly sought financial contributions from rich evangelical businessmen such as John Farwell and Cyrus McCormick . Moody's approach was rough, blunt and unconventional, but wealthy philanthropists could see he truly cared for the urban poor and he found effective ways to improve their lot. During an 1867 visit to England, Moody became acquainted with

20832-568: The contemporary lexicon as the standard liberal term for the idea that Western values rest on a religious consensus that included Jews." In the aftermath of World War 2 and the Holocaust , "there was a revolution in Christian theology in America. […] The greatest shift in Christian attitudes towards the Jewish people since Constantine converted the Roman Empire ." The rise of Christian Zionism , religiously motivated Christian interest, and support for

21018-453: The contiguous United States are in the State of California, about 84 miles (135 km) apart. At an elevation of 20,310 feet (6,190.5 m), Alaska's Denali is the highest peak in the country and continent. Active volcanoes are common throughout Alaska's Alexander and Aleutian Islands , and Hawaii consists of volcanic islands. The supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park in

21204-549: The country's GDP. The U.S. has 42% of the world's nuclear weapons —the second-largest share after Russia. The United States has the third-largest combined armed forces in the world, behind the Chinese People's Liberation Army and Indian Armed Forces . The military operates about 800 bases and facilities abroad, and maintains deployments greater than 100 active duty personnel in 25 foreign countries. State defense forces (SDFs) are military units that operate under

21390-464: The country's territory would expand with the admission of new states , rather than the expansion of existing states. The U.S. Constitution was drafted at the 1787 Constitutional Convention to overcome the limitations of the Articles. It went into effect in 1789, creating a federal republic governed by three separate branches that together ensured a system of checks and balances . George Washington

21576-464: The course of early fundamentalism, but wealthy businessmen also played a crucial role. For example, Union Oil co-founder Lyman Stewart was instrumental in establishing the Bible Institute of Los Angeles. He also anonymously funded publication and distribution of The Fundamentals (groups of essays by multiple authors published quarterly in twelve volumes from 1910 through 1915), which became

21762-402: The deaf , and hospitals for treating tuberculosis . They formed organizations to provide food, clothing, money, and job placement to immigrants and the poor. In order to "impress the new nation with an indelibly Protestant character," evangelicals founded Sunday schools , colleges, and seminaries. They published millions of books, tracts , and Christian periodicals through organizations such as

21948-456: The descendants of Abraham. Other factors in the new philo-Semitism include gratitude to the Jews for contributing to the theological foundations of Christianity and being the source of the prophets and Jesus ; remorse for the Church's history of antisemitism ; and fear that God will judge the nations at the end of time based on how they treated the Jewish people. Moreover, for many evangelicals Israel

22134-636: The development of self-governance, and the First Great Awakening , a series of Christian revivals , fueled colonial interest in religious liberty . For a century, the American colonists had been providing their own troops and materiel in conflicts with indigenous peoples allied with Britain's colonial rivals , especially France, and the Americans had begun to develop a sense of self-defense and self-reliance separate from Britain. The French and Indian War (1754–1763) took on new significance for all North American colonists after Parliament under William Pitt

22320-434: The early 20th century, a divide opened up between fundamentalists and the mainline Protestant denominations, chiefly over inerrancy of the Bible. After 1910, evangelicalism was dominated by fundamentalists who rejected liberal theology, emphasized inerrancy of Scripture, and taught a dispensationalist interpretation of the Bible to support their views of human history and mankind's future. Pastors, theologians, and laity shaped

22506-667: The early followers of Jesus who opposed" the wishes of Paul the Apostle and wanted "to restrict the message of Jesus to Jews and who insisted on maintaining Jewish law and ritual". Friedrich Nietzsche used the German term "Judenchristlich" ("Jewish-Christian") to describe and emphasize what he believed were neglected aspects of the continuity which exists between the Jewish and Christian worldviews. The expression appears in The Antichrist , published in 1895 but written several years earlier;

22692-444: The end of the 19th century, the old evangelical consensus that had united much of American Protestantism no longer existed. Protestant churches became divided over ground-breaking new intellectual and theological ideas, such as Darwinian evolution and historical criticism of the Bible . Those who embraced these ideas became known as modernists , while those who rejected them became known as fundamentalists . Fundamentalists defended

22878-476: The end of the war affected almost everyone in America: millions of men returned from the armed forces , while millions of women left their temporary wartime industrial jobs . The marriage rate and the birth rate soared, accelerating a baby boom that had begun while the war was still being fought. As young American families crowded into new churches, their ministers, priests, and rabbis led them in fervent prayers for

23064-662: The entire population in 1776) had moved west of the Appalachian Mountains. There were three major centers of revival in the Second Great Awakening. Revival in the Cumberland River Valley of western frontier states Tennessee and Kentucky started as early as 1800. In New England , a major revival began among Congregationalists by the 1820s, led by Edwardsian preachers such as Timothy Dwight , Lyman Beecher , Nathaniel Taylor , and Asahel Nettleton . In western New York—the so-called " burned-over district " along

23250-564: The environment for labor unions to begin to flourish . This period eventually ended with the advent of the Progressive Era , which was characterized by significant reforms. Pro-American elements in Hawaii overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy ; the islands were annexed in 1898. That same year, Puerto Rico , the Philippines , and Guam were ceded to the U.S. by Spain after the latter's defeat in

23436-608: The established churches and formed Separate Baptist congregations. In the 1740s and 1750s, New Side Presbyterians and Separate Baptists began moving to the southern colonies and establishing churches. Many traveled along the difficult Great Wagon Road on their way to the southern colonies. There they challenged the Anglican religious establishment, which was identified with the planter elite . In contrast, evangelicals tended to be neither very rich nor very poor, but hardworking farmers and tradesmen who disapproved of worldliness they saw in

23622-521: The evangelical community, because evangelicals of a more conservative stance believe this trend compromises important issues, and values popularity and consensus too highly: "a 'capitulation' to the broader culture." Personifying this division in the early 21st century were the evangelical leaders James Dobson and Rick Warren . Dobson warned of dangers, from his point of view, of a victory by Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2008 . Warren declined to endorse either major candidate, on

23808-527: The federal government often applied policies of Indian removal or assimilation . The Trail of Tears (1830–1850) was a U.S. government policy that forcibly removed and displaced most Native Americans living east of the Mississippi River to lands far to the west. These and earlier organized displacements prompted a long series of American Indian Wars west of the Mississippi. The Republic of Texas

23994-590: The first nuclear weapons and used them against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, ending the war. The United States was one of the " Four Policemen " who met to plan the post-war world , alongside the United Kingdom , Soviet Union , and China . The U.S. emerged relatively unscathed from the war, with even greater economic power and international political influence . After World War II,

24180-487: The first time, he was encountering the situation of nations with ample governmental support for Israel but disinterest and even overt hostility by the Jewish populace. The scriptural basis for this new positive attitude towards Jews among evangelicals is found in Genesis 12:3, in which God promises that he will bless those who bless Abraham , and curse those who curse them. In the evangelical interpretation this promise includes

24366-477: The foundation document of Christian fundamentalism, published as a set in 1917, and he ensured that its many individual authors promoted premillennialist dispensationalism. The essays were written by 64 different authors, representing most of the major Protestant Christian denominations. It was mailed free of charge to ministers, missionaries, professors of theology, Sunday school superintendents, YMCA and YWCA secretaries, and other Protestant religious workers in

24552-500: The founders of a pietistic movement within the Church of England called Methodism . Whitefield's dramatic preaching style and ability to simplify doctrine made him a popular preacher in England, and in 1739 he arrived in America preaching up and down the Atlantic coastline. Thousands flocked to open-air meetings to hear him preach, and he became a celebrity throughout the colonies. The Great Awakening hit its peak by 1740, but it shaped

24738-805: The fundamentalists' message more welcome among American groups and communities who opposed reform of their own cherished institutions (such as violent enforcement of racial segregation by local authorities and by self-appointed vigilante groups ) and business practices (ruthless exploitation of industrial workers, redlining , and the Jim Crow economy ). Dispensationalism also led fundamentalists to fear that new trends in modern science were pulling people away from what they saw as essential truth, and to believe that modernist parties in Protestant churches had surrendered their Evangelical heritage by accommodating secular views and values. Among these fundamentalist evangelicals,

24924-688: The funding resources available for missionary work. Overseas missionaries began to prepare for their postwar role, in organizations such as the Far Eastern Gospel Crusade . After Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan had been defeated, the newly mobilized evangelicals prepared to combat perceived threats from atheistic communism, secularism, Darwinism, liberalism, Catholicism, and (in overseas missions) paganism. While mainline Protestant denominations cut back on their missionary activities from 7,000 overseas workers in 1935 to only 3,000 in 1980, evangelicals tripled their career foreign missionary force in

25110-455: The grounds that he wanted the church to be less politically divisive and that he agreed substantially with both Obama and Republican Party candidate John McCain . Anywhere from 6 to 35% of the United States population is evangelical, depending on how "evangelical" is defined. A 2008 study reported that in 2000, about 9% of Americans attended an evangelical service on any given Sunday. A 2014 Pew Research Center survey of religious life in

25296-463: The integration of Army National Guard units and personnel into the U.S. Army and (since 1947) the U.S. Air Force. There are about 18,000 U.S. police agencies from local to national level in the United States. Law in the United States is mainly enforced by local police departments and sheriff departments in their municipal or county jurisdictions. The state police departments have authority in their respective state , and federal agencies such as

25482-501: The level of antisemitism in the United States . In this effort, precursors of the National Conference of Christians and Jews created teams consisting of a priest, a rabbi, and a minister, to run programs across the country, and fashion a more pluralistic America, no longer defined as a Christian land, but "one nurtured by three ennobling traditions: Protestantism , Catholicism and Judaism ....The phrase 'Judeo-Christian' entered

25668-401: The margins of American religious life towards its very center." During World War II , Jewish chaplains worked with Catholic priests and Protestant ministers in order to promote goodwill, addressing servicemen who, "in many cases had never seen, much less heard a Rabbi speak before." At funerals for the unknown soldier, rabbis stood alongside the other chaplains and recited prayers in Hebrew. In

25854-407: The merger of three older Protestant traditions: New England Puritanism , Continental Pietism and Scotch-Irish Presbyterianism . Within their Congregational churches , Puritans promoted experimental or experiential religion, arguing that saving faith required an inward transformation. This led Puritans to demand evidence of a conversion experience (in the form of a conversion narrative ) before

26040-427: The military draft (leading to the end of conscription in 1973) and wide opposition to U.S. intervention in Vietnam (with the U.S. totally withdrawing in 1975). A societal shift in the roles of women was significantly responsible for the large increase in female paid labor participation during the 1970s, and by 1985 the majority of American women aged 16 and older were employed. The late 1980s and early 1990s saw

26226-524: The more open group, which they often characterized derogatorily by Ockenga's term "neo-Evangelical", or simply "evangelicals". The end of World War II in 1945 and the onset of the Cold War by 1948 provided new opportunities for evangelical expansion. The Second World War ended in August 1945 after the U.S. used two nuclear bombs to destroy the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki . Even nonreligious people groped for religious language to express those bombs' nearly unimaginable destructive power. And

26412-612: The most attractive to the population are the most vulnerable. The U.S. is one of 17 megadiverse countries containing large numbers of endemic species : about 17,000 species of vascular plants occur in the contiguous United States and Alaska, and over 1,800 species of flowering plants are found in Hawaii, few of which occur on the mainland. The United States is home to 428 mammal species, 784 birds, 311 reptiles, 295 amphibians , and around 91,000 insect species. There are 63 national parks , and hundreds of other federally managed parks, forests, and wilderness areas , managed by

26598-409: The most influential American evangelist of the 20th century. Evangelicals' international missionary activity also expanded in the postwar era. White evangelicals found new enthusiasm and self-confidence after the nation's victory in the world war. Many came from poor rural districts that had struggled during the Great Depression of the 1930s, but wartime and postwar prosperity had dramatically increased

26784-604: The most useful tool for pinning down today's evangelicals." She finds that evangelicals share common origins in the religious revivals and moral crusades of the 18th and 19th centuries. She writes, "Evangelical catchphrases like 'Bible-believing' and 'born again' are modern translations of the Reformers ' slogan sola scriptura and Pietists' emphasis on internal spiritual transformation." Evangelicals are often defined in opposition to mainline Protestants . According to sociologist Brian Steensland and colleagues, "evangelical denominations have typically sought more separation from

26970-478: The most violent, the California genocide of thousands of Native inhabitants, lasted into the early 1870s, just as additional western territories and states were created. During the colonial period, slavery had been legal in the American colonies , though the practice began to be significantly questioned during the American Revolution. States in the North enacted abolition laws , though support for slavery strengthened in Southern states , as inventions such as

27156-453: The nation into an anxious, apocalyptic mood. Then in October, media tycoon William Randolph Hearst sent a telegram to all editors in his conservative Hearst chain of newspapers : " Puff Graham." As a result, within five days Graham gained national coverage. Planned to last three weeks, the event ran for eight weeks. Graham became a national figure with heavy coverage from the wire services and national magazines, and he went on to become

27342-599: The necessity of being born again , emphasize the importance of evangelism , and affirm traditional Protestant teachings on the authority as well as the historicity of the Bible . Comprising nearly a quarter of the U.S. population, evangelicals are a diverse group drawn from a variety of denominational backgrounds, including nondenominational churches, Pentecostal , Baptist , Lutheran , Reformed , Methodist , Mennonite , Plymouth Brethren , Quaker . Evangelicalism has played an important role in shaping American religion and culture . The First Great Awakening of

27528-572: The necessity of conversion, they "had held that assurance is rare, late and the fruit of struggle in the experience of believers". Emphasis on the individual's relationship to God gave evangelicalism an egalitarian streak as well, which was perceived by anti-revivalists as undermining social order. Radical evangelicals ordained uneducated ministers (sometimes nonwhite men) and sometimes allowed nonwhites and women to serve as deacons and elders . They also supported laypeople's right to dissent from their pastors and form new churches. The Awakening split

27714-598: The north and Mexico to the south, with the states of Alaska to the northwest and the archipelagic Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean . The United States also asserts sovereignty over five major island territories and various uninhabited islands . The country has the world's third-largest land area , largest exclusive economic zone , and third-largest population , exceeding 334 million. Its three largest metropolitan areas are New York , Los Angeles , and Chicago , and its three most populous states are California , Texas , and Florida . Paleo-Indians migrated across

27900-407: The planter class. In the 1760s, the first Methodist missionaries came to America and focused their ministry in the South as well. By 1776, evangelicals outnumbered Anglicans in the South. During and after the American Revolution , the Anglican Church (now known as the Episcopal Church ) experienced much disruption and lost its special legal status and privileges. The four largest denominations were

28086-408: The policy of redlining later adopted by the federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation . An explosion of technological advancement accompanied by the exploitation of cheap immigrant labor led to rapid economic expansion during the late 19th and early 20th centuries , allowing the United States to outpace the economies of England, France, and Germany combined. This fostered the amassing of power by

28272-489: The postmillennial belief that the Second Coming of Christ would occur after mankind had reformed the entire Earth. It was affiliated with the Social Gospel movement, which applied Christianity to social issues. The spread of dispensationalism in late 19th-century America led many Evangelicals to return to the more pessimistic premillennialist point of view. According to scholar Mark Sweetnam, dispensationalists are evangelical, premillennialist and apocalyptic , insist on

28458-404: The practice of racial slavery upon which the South's expanding cash-crops-for-export agricultural economy was built. During the bloody Civil War , each side confidently preached in support of its own cause using Bible verses and Evangelical arguments, which exposed a deep theological conflict that had been brewing for decades and would continue long after Lee 's surrender at Appomattox. By

28644-428: The previous century. By this time, modernists had largely abandoned the term "evangelical," and tolerated evolutionary theories in modern science and even in Biblical studies. In the 1930s, fundamentalist pastors and parishioners who rejected modernist viewpoints put forward by their own denominations turned more and more to the dispensationalist Bible institutes for guidance and community. As the largest of these schools,

28830-420: The primary colonial grievances was a denial of their rights as Englishmen , particularly the right to representation in the British government that taxed them . To demonstrate their dissatisfaction and resolve, the First Continental Congress met in 1774 and passed the Continental Association , a colonial boycott of British goods that proved effective. The British attempt to then disarm the colonists resulted in

29016-494: The rapture, continued to be a major theme. Many earlier evangelists had preached in tents to small-town audiences on the "sawdust trail," but the new evangelicals sought ways to save souls in the big cities that had come to dominate American life. Youth for Christ was formed in 1940 to help make the evangelical message attractive to soldiers, sailors, and urban teenagers; it later became the base for Billy Graham's post-war revival crusades. The National Association of Evangelicals

29202-399: The revivalist Holiness movement promoted the doctrine of entire sanctification , and while many adherents remained within mainline Methodism, those associated with it also formed new denominations, such as the Free Methodist Church and Wesleyan Methodist Church . In urban Britain the holiness message was less censorious, and did not face as much opposition. From the 1850s to the 1920s,

29388-515: The rights of African Americans . National infrastructure, including transcontinental telegraph and railroads , spurred growth in the American frontier . From 1865 through 1917 an unprecedented stream of immigrants arrived in the United States, including 24.4 million from Europe. Most came through the port of New York City , and New York City and other large cities on the East Coast became home to large Jewish , Irish , and Italian populations, while many Germans and Central Europeans moved to

29574-437: The rocky Great Basin and Chihuahua , Sonoran , and Mojave deserts. In the northwest corner of Arizona , carved by the Colorado River over millions of years, is the Grand Canyon , a steep-sided canyon and popular tourist destination known for its overwhelming visual size and intricate, colorful landscape. The Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges run close to the Pacific coast . The lowest and highest points in

29760-404: The same period: from 12,000 in 1935 to 35,000 in 1980. At Youth for Christ's 70,000-person rally on Memorial Day 1945 in Chicago's Soldier Field football stadium (seating capacity 74,000), soldiers and nurses marched along with missionary representatives who paraded in costumes representing all the nations still awaiting the dispensationalist gospel. North Americans had sent out only 41% of all

29946-405: The separatist stance of fundamentalism and began calling themselves evangelicals. Popular evangelist Billy Graham was at the forefront of reviving use of the term. During this time period, several evangelical institutions were established, including the National Association of Evangelicals , the magazine Christianity Today , and educational institutions such as Fuller Theological Seminary . As

30132-464: The six service branches, which are made up of the U.S. Army , Marine Corps , Navy , Air Force , and Space Force . The Coast Guard is administered by the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime and can be transferred to the Department of the Navy in wartime. The United States spent $ 916 billion on its military in 2023, which is by far the largest amount of any country , making up 37% of global military spending and accounting for 3.4% of

30318-407: The sole authority of a state government. SDFs are authorized by state and federal law but are under the command of the state's governor . They are distinct from the state's National Guard units in that they cannot become federalized entities. A state's National Guard personnel, however, may be federalized under the National Defense Act Amendments of 1933 , which created the Guard and provides for

30504-416: The spread of dispensationalist beliefs, and he was influential in preaching the imminence of the Kingdom of God that is so important to dispensationalism. Enlisting philanthropic support from the business community was one of several enduring innovations Moody had introduced into the conduct of revival campaigns. Like many clergymen in the Gilded Age that followed soon after the Civil War, Moody supported

30690-399: The start of the revival, in a statement released on September 23, 1949, President Truman revealed to the public that the communist Soviet Union had built and successfully detonated its own nuclear bomb on August 29. Six days after the revival started, mainland China fell to Mao Zedong 's communist Red Army . Newspaper headlines that reported these shocking Cold War events put much of

30876-414: The state of Israel increased interest in Judaism among American evangelicals . This interest is especially focused on areas of commonality between the teachings of Judaism and their own beliefs. During the late 1940s, evangelical proponents of the new Judeo-Christian approach lobbied Washington for diplomatic support of the new state of Israel. From the 1990s, continuing through the first two decades of

31062-543: The states are also represented by local elected governments , which are administrative divisions of the states. States are subdivided into counties or county equivalents , and further divided into municipalities . The District of Columbia is a federal district containing the U.S. capital, Washington, D.C. . The federal district is an administrative division of the federal government. Federally recognized tribes govern 326 Indian reservations . The United States has an established structure of foreign relations, and it has

31248-451: The structure and responsibilities of the national federal government and its relationship with the individual states. The U.S. Constitution is the world's oldest national constitution still in effect (from March 4, 1789). Composed of three branches, all headquartered in Washington, D.C., the federal government is the national government of the United States. It is regulated by a strong system of checks and balances . The three-branch system

31434-457: The term neo-evangelicalism in 1947 to identify a distinct movement he saw within fundamentalist Christianity. This new generation of evangelicals sought to pursue a more open, non-judgmental dialogue with other traditions. They also called for greater application of the gospel to sociology, politics, and economics. Many fundamentalists responded by separating their opponents from the "fundamentalist" name and by seeking to distinguish themselves from

31620-405: The two faiths." Reacting against the blurring of theological distinctions, Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits wrote that "Judaism is Judaism because it rejects Christianity, and Christianity is Christianity because it rejects Judaism." Theologian and author Arthur A. Cohen , in The Myth of the Judeo-Christian Tradition , questioned the theological validity of the Judeo-Christian concept and suggested that it

31806-404: The wealthy men who sat on the platform with him, such as McCormick, William E. Dodge , and John Wanamaker , comment that they were all devout church members, all born again Christians, and say that few of the poor in the slums of Chicago, London, or New York attended church services. Moody also viewed industrialism and its ills through the same lens of Christian conversion. As he saw it, the fix

31992-406: The world's fourth-longest river system , runs predominantly north–south through the heart of the country. The flat and fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches to the west, interrupted by a highland region in the southeast. The Rocky Mountains , west of the Great Plains, extend north to south across the country, peaking at over 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in Colorado . Farther west are

32178-449: The world's second-largest diplomatic corps as of 2024 . It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council , and home to the United Nations headquarters . The United States is a member of the G7 , G20 , and OECD intergovernmental organizations. Almost all countries have embassies and many have consulates (official representatives) in the country. Likewise, nearly all countries host formal diplomatic missions with

32364-432: The world's Protestant missionaries in 1936, but their contribution rose to 52% in 1952 and 72% in 1969. Denominations expanding their overseas missionary efforts after the war included the United Pentecostal Church International , formed in 1945, and the Assemblies of God , which nearly tripled from 230 missionaries in 1935 to 626 in 1952. Southern Baptist missionaries more than doubled from 405 to 855, as did those sent by

32550-444: The world's oldest surviving federation, and its presidential system of national government has been adopted, in whole or in part, by many newly independent states worldwide following their decolonization . It is a liberal representative democracy "in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law ". The Constitution of the United States serves as the country's supreme legal document , also establishing

32736-423: The world's tornadoes occur in the country , mainly in Tornado Alley . Overall, the United States receives more high-impact extreme weather incidents than any other country. Extreme weather became more frequent in the U.S. in the 21st century, with three times the number of reported heat waves as in the 1960s. In the American Southwest , droughts became more persistent and more severe. The regions considered as

32922-431: The world, with almost 2 million people incarcerated . An analysis of the World Health Organization Mortality Database from 2010 showed U.S. homicide rates "were 7 times higher than in other high-income countries, driven by a gun homicide rate that was 25 times higher". Evangelicalism in the United States In the United States , evangelicalism is a movement among Protestant Christians who believe in

33108-458: Was annexed in 1845, and the 1846 Oregon Treaty led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest . Victory in the Mexican–American War resulted in the 1848 Mexican Cession of California, Nevada, Utah, and much of present-day Colorado and the American Southwest . The California gold rush of 1848–1849 spurred a huge migration of white settlers to the Pacific coast, leading to even more confrontations with Native populations. One of

33294-703: Was adopted on July 4, 1776. The political values of the American Revolution included liberty , inalienable individual rights ; and the sovereignty of the people ; supporting republicanism and rejecting monarchy , aristocracy , and all hereditary political power; civic virtue ; and vilification of political corruption . The Founding Fathers of the United States , who included Washington, Jefferson, John Adams , Benjamin Franklin , Alexander Hamilton , John Jay , James Madison , Thomas Paine , and many others, were inspired by Greco-Roman , Renaissance , and Enlightenment philosophies and ideas. The Articles of Confederation were ratified in 1781 and established

33480-460: Was also active in social reforms, particularly the abolitionist movement. He frequently denounced slavery from the pulpit, called it a "great national sin," and refused Holy Communion to slaveholders. Evangelical views on eschatology (the doctrine of the end times) have also changed over time. The Puritans were premillennialists, which means they believed Christ would return before the Millennium (a thousand years of godly rule on earth). But

33666-404: Was elected the country's first president under the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791 to allay skeptics' concerns about the power of the more centralized government. His resignation as commander-in-chief after the Revolutionary War and his later refusal to run for a third term as the country's first president established a precedent for the supremacy of civil authority in

33852-561: Was essentially an invention of American politics , while Jacob Neusner , in Jews and Christians: The Myth of a Common Tradition , writes, "The two faiths stand for different people talking about different things to different people." Law professor Stephen M. Feldman looking at the period before 1950, chiefly in Europe, sees invocation of a "Judeo-Christian tradition" as supersessionism : Once one recognizes that Christianity has historically engendered antisemitism, then this so-called tradition appears as dangerous Christian dogma (at least from

34038-400: Was formed in 1942 as a response to the mainline Federal Council of Churches , which had been organized in 1908. Charles Fuller had started broadcasting the Old-Fashioned Revival Hour in 1937; by 1943 it had a record-setting national radio audience, with twenty million weekly listeners. But a split also developed among evangelicals in this era, as they disagreed among themselves about how

34224-521: Was here that the traditional Scottish communion season began to evolve into the American camp meeting . In northeastern Kentucky's Bourbon County a year later, the Cane Ridge Revival led by Barton Stone lasted a week and drew crowds of 20,000 people from the thinly populated frontier . At Cane Ridge, many converts experienced religious ecstasy and "bodily agitations". Some worshipers caught holy laughter , barked like dogs, experienced convulsions , fell into trances , danced, shouted or were slain in

34410-477: Was organized in 1876 to teach dispensationalist ideas; these ideas came to dominate the fundamentalist movement within a few decades. Dwight L. Moody played a key role in this transformation. In the latter half of the 19th century, Moody became the most important evangelical figure of the era, weaving ideas from business and religion into a compelling new form of evangelical Protestantism and reaching very large audiences with his powerful preaching. Focused on

34596-414: Was simple and obvious: believe in God, and the problems will vanish soon. American evangelical minister and Moody associate Cyrus Scofield also promoted the spread of dispensationalism, starting with a pamphlet published in 1888, then by weaving extensive interpretive commentary into prominent notes on the pages of his ambitious Scofield Reference Bible . First published in 1909, the Scofield Bible became

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