tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post4648030102907095984..comments2024-03-26T11:33:59.219-06:00Comments on Religion in American History: The Mainline's Main MagazinePaul Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13881964303772343114noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-36710026424670815962013-05-22T17:22:18.763-06:002013-05-22T17:22:18.763-06:00Just an anecdote. About 1975 I was a student at T...Just an anecdote. About 1975 I was a student at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, TX. I had "surrendered" to the ministry in my Baptist church in 1972. Billy Graham was holding a crusade in Lubbock, and I volunteered to be a counselor. My professor of British Labour History spoke very condescendingly of the Crusade going on at the University's stadium. In about 1989 i was a United Methodist minister and Martin Marty was giving a lecture at St. John's UMC in Lubbock. Said history professor introduced Marty. I don't remember the theme of Marty's address. I just remember how he praised Billy Graham for staying true to his calling as an evangelist. I'm sure it was a good lecture, but we were Methodist liberals were a bit nonplussed with it! All I remember is the juxtaposition of Marty and my history professor. Thanks for the review Jason. Steven Patrick Barretthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04998030208916230323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-6711056493552347622013-05-20T22:34:02.960-06:002013-05-20T22:34:02.960-06:00Coffman’s book showed me otherwise—for decades we ...<i> Coffman’s book showed me otherwise—for decades we sounded little different than The Nation or The New Republic. Jenson’s views on numbers are also informative. A friend asked him once how many copies he hoped to sell of his next book. Jense mused, 250. My friend was surprised he was satisfied with the number—surely 250 wasn’t enough? “Well, if it’s the right 250 it is,” Jense replied. <br />Not a bad summary of the Century’s approach to numbers. Coffman relates (in a bit too much detail for my taste) the magazine’s long effort to promulgate ideas that only mattered to university-trained and related elites broadly enough to sell enough copies to keep in business.</i><br /><br />As a cranky numbers guy, that seems legit: I always wonder if these things are really about history or more a FUBU thing.<br /><br /><i>My sense is that is part of Marty’s long frustration with evangelicals is that they speak as though the mainline is not also offering Christ, they claim “success” with converts when really they’re often poaching the already-baptized. He’s usually just too much a gentleman to say it out loud.</i><br /><br />Hilarious & some good history there, Jason.<br /><br /><i>I do think evangelicalism and mainline have both been parasitic on one another. Each only knows who they are by the other’s malicious existence. I occasionally praise the Century to others by saying they are genuine liberals. They actually care what other people think. Sometimes liberals will only respect others if they are, a priori, as liberal as they are. The Century was broad-minded enough to listen to non-liberals. Coffman’s book shows this is historically almost true. </i><br /><br />Oh well, nobody's perfect.<br /><br />I would be interested in the fate of Billy Graham's converts/reverts. Surely many went to the New Evangelicals, but did many find their way back to the Mainline as well? It's another cranky numbers thing, I suppose, but rather key for placing Graham in ecclesiastical history.<br /><br />Compliments du chef for Jason and Elesha. I look forward to greater context on liberal Protestantism: it certainly captured the culture back in the day, the question now of course is whether it ended up being the other way around.Tom Van Dykehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07121072404143877596noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-12129240759638395212013-05-20T13:55:29.938-06:002013-05-20T13:55:29.938-06:00Thanks, Jason! This generous (and highly entertain...Thanks, Jason! This generous (and highly entertaining) review doesn't need a response, but perhaps it does invite one, at least insofar as it raises biographical questions.<br /><br />I did, indeed, work for Christianity Today International from 1997-2002, first in the online services department, then for Campus Life (a teen magazine) and Christian History. Perhaps because I never worked for Christianity Today magazine, I was unaware of the historical enmity between CT and the Century until I began my research. Campus Life and Christian History had no direct competitors, so we worried about getting contributors, advertisers, and above all subscribers--which probably explains why I pay so much attention to these things in the book. Company-wide, we worried more about competition from our right (World magazine, Focus on the Familly) and from burgeoning Pentecostalism (Charisma magazine and the rest of what was then Strang Communications). That reflects both the trends of the era and the fact that the Century never vied for the same consumer-driven publishing niche as those other companies did.<br /><br />If I do too transparently root for Billy Graham in the book, and I'm sure that I do, I think that's more because of my mentor's ongoing work on Graham and because of my sense that the Century folks in the 1950s were really unfair to him. Their hostility, it seems to me, went way beyond theological disagreement or reasonable questions about his methods to something more like a gag reflex, coupled with an unwillingness to acknowledge ways in which he was not just a throwback Fundamentalist. Especially at the 1957 New York City Crusade, I think Graham would be better classified as ecumenical, provided that you use that term to describe a Christian seeking to cooperate with a broad spectrum of other Christians, not as a synonym for "liberal." I doubt anyone at the Century perceived Graham as an ecumenical figure at the time, though I do think there was a fear that he was beating the soon-to-be-named mainline at its own game.<br /><br />Incidentally, the propensity of Graham and other evangelicals (though by no means all of them) to work across denominational lines makes me very hesitant to substitute "ecumenical" for "mainline." I just don't see "ecumenical" and "evangelical" as a better binary pairing. I'm also hesitant to discard "mainline" because I believe that echoes of the northeastern, educated, upper class still resound in the tradition, though (as Jason and Carol both point out) they grow fainter all the time. <br /><br />Thanks again to everyone who's participating in the enlivened new conversation about liberal/mainline Protestantism! It's hard to imagine that I considered the topic deader than a doornail when I began my dissertation.<br /><br />EleshaEleshahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03764991021577652939noreply@blogger.com