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Title: A Historical Look at the Status, Engagement and Implications of the Ta Ethne Immigration to the United States from 1775 to 2006


1
A Historical Look at the Status, Engagement and
Implications of the Ta Ethne Immigration to the
United States from 1775 to 2006
  • A Version Developed for the NAMB Leadership
    Celebration

2
Documentation of This Look At Immigration from
1775 to 1950
  • Will Herbergs and Oscar Handlins works, along
    with John Hansens work, stand today as the
    classic works on immigration to the USA up to the
    1950s. through major research of their own, which
    included Their research was based upon the work
    of hundreds of other social researchers of their
    era.
  • That body of research when joined with research
    from the 1960s to now provides clarity and vital
    understanding of our situation today.

3
Exploring The Ta Ethne Migration from 1775 to
2006 A.D.
  • An old proverb says those who do not consider
    and pay attention to history are doomed to repeat
    it.
  • There is a more biblical focus. A look at
    Israel in the Old Testament era tells us that
    when Israel ignored God and history, God warned
    them and instigated their downfall.

4
The Three Periods that Led to Future-Altering
Changes in the USA
  • The first of the three periods occurred between
    1775 and 1924. We will extend this date to 1950
    to include the religious data parameters.
  • The second period of change occurred between
    1945 and 1960. (This period is an overlap
    period.)
  • The third period of change occurred between 1960
    and 2006 A.D. and will likely continue to the
    extreme. Many Christians are unaware of issues.

5
A Look At 1775 to 1950--The Main Historical,
Social and Religious Factors Related to
Immigration to the USA

6
Will Herbergs Oscar Handlins Basic Research
Findings
  • Oscar Handlin said in the 1950s Once I thought
    to write a history of the immigrants in America.
    Then I discovered that the immigrants were
    American history The Uprooted, The Epic Story
    of the Great Migrations that Made the American
    People. (p. 3. Little Brown, 1957)
  • This is the most significant and critical
    reality for America and American Christians to
    understand-- then and now. We will explore the
    then followed by a look at the now.

7
A Look At 1775 to 1950America, A Nation of
Panta ta ethne Immigrants
  • America was founded, grew and flourished in terms
    of ethnic peoples, population, religious
    adherents and their churches. We will explore
    those categories.
  • Herberg described America following 1607 saying
    The colonists who came to these shores from the
    time of the founding of Jamestown in 1607 to the
    outbreak of the Revolution were mostly of English
    and Scottish stock, augmented by a considerable
    number of settlers of Dutch, Swedish, German, and
    Irish origin.

8
A Look At 1775 to 1950America, A Nation of
Panta ta ethne Immigrants
  • Herberg and Handlin said in separate research
    documents in the 1950s At the time of the
    Revolution, this British-Protestant element
    (usually, though inaccurately, known as
    Anglo-Saxon) constituted at least 75 per cent
    of the 3,000,000 whites who made up the new
    nation (in 1775).
  • In addition, there were about three quarters of
    a million (750,000) negroes.
  • The great influx (of ethnics) came in the next
    century.
  • In three huge waves, stretching over something
    more than a hundred years, over 35,000,000 men
    and women left Europe to come to continental
    United States.

9
A Look At 1775 to 1950America, A Nation of
Panta ta ethne Immigrants
  • By 1924 when the great migrations were past, the
    British-Protestant element had been reduced to
    less than half the population, and Americans had
    become linguistically and ethnically the most
    diverse people on earth. (Herberg and Handlin)
    That situation has continued to increase since
    1924 to 2006.

10
A Look At 1775 to 1950America, A Nation of
Panta ta ethne Immigrants
  • The melding force from 1775 was a combination of
    the frontier, economics and the continuing waves
    of ethnic immigrant arrivals from 1775 to 1924.
  • Immigrants found plenty of opportunities to work
    on the Westward moving frontier and came in waves
    seeking frontier jobs.
  • First generation immigrants rose from menial jobs
    to middle class manager/business status

11
The Economics of Immigrants
  • From 1830 to 1930, Irish, Bohemians, Slovaks,
    Hungarians, and many other peoples followed each
    other in the service of the pick and shovel, each
    earlier group, displaced by newcomers, moving
    upward in the occupational and social scaleIf
    successive waves of immigration served as the
    push in this pattern of occupational
    advancement, education and acculturation to
    American ways provided the immigrants with the
    opportunity of making the most of it, (Herberg)

12
A Look At 1775 to 1950America, A Nation of
Panta ta ethne Immigrants
  • The second generation of immigrants assumed the
    jobs of the vacated first generation immigrants
    who moved up on job ladder.
  • As the frontier moved farther westward and as new
    waves of immigrants came to America, the movement
    from menial to managerial jobs continued.
  • This kept immigrants from wholesale settlement
    within ethnic enclaves, except in cities.

13
A Look At 1775 to 1950America, A Nation of
Panta ta ethne Immigrants
  • The Americanization process did produce in the
    somewhat melded population a fairly common
    English language among the ethnics.
  • However, pronounced (pun intended) regional, and
    some sub-regional, dialectical accents, worldview
    expressions and word choices remained unmixed
    within the various ethnics.
  • Some immigrants stayed in cities and often
    duplicated their ethnic status there.

14
A Look At 1775 to 1950America, A Nation of
Panta ta ethne Immigrants
  • Americanization of the various European ethnics
  • even though they learned English for economic
    reasons, this language melding did not erase all
    of their ethnic identities.
  • As will be seen, this language melding did not
    erase their religious identity from the old
    country. Of all their ethnic qualities, their
    religious identity came over from old country.

15
A Look At 1775 to 1950America, A Nation of
Panta ta ethne Immigrants
  • Most of the regional dialectical and worldview
    differences can be traced to ethnic heritages
    that persisted. Consider the Cajuns in
    Louisiana. German dairy communities spotted the
    nation. For other examples see the DVD package
    entitled The Appalachians and the San Antonio,
    Texas Catholic Missions video produced by the US
    Parks and Historical Society.

16
A Look At 1775 to 1950America, A Nation of
Panta ta ethne Immigrants
  • American frontier history shaped and melded
    only to a degree the European ta ethne peoples.
  • Over a two-hundred year period these multiple
    ethnic groups were melded mainly into an Anglo
    Saxon or Anglo-Saxon-oriented population, at
    least in terms of language. It is out of this
    process that the WASP aroseWhite Anglo Saxon
    Protestant.

17
A Look At 1775 to 1950America, A Nation of
Panta ta ethne Immigrants
  • American religious denominations, beginning in
    1775 and continuing until 1950, underwent classic
    changes which were only minimally theological.
  • In the American religious landscape Protestantism
    dominated from the 1700s to the 1900s.
  • American Indians, who were almost the only
    Americans in the 1500s and 1600s, and who existed
    in many ethnic groupings, are said by various
    historians to have suffered the most between 1775
    and 1924 as the European ethnics came and settled
    the American frontier from the Atlantic to the
    Pacific.

18
The American Indian from 1600 to 1900
  • The first change was the overrunning of the
    American Indians by the European immigrants
  • Of an estimated 300 plus original languages
    spoken within the American continent, 175 living
    languages remain (National Museum of the American
    Indian, the Smithsonian Inst.)
  • Optimum estimates of pre-Columbian population was
    15,000,000 to 18,000,000 (R. David Edmonds of
    UTDallas)

19
The American Indian from 1600 to 1900
  • By 1860 in the continental USA there were
    official government counts or estimates of
    339,421 American Indians (James Collins, Native
    Americans in the Census, 1860-1890)
  • By 1880 the American Indian count was 305,543.
    (Collins)
  • Like all early US Census data, this was based
    upon a projected sample. The issue is the
    decline from 15,000,000 to 306,543.

20
Immigration from 1775 to 1924
  • The epic story of the great migrations that
    made the American people came to an end
    substantially with World War I and with the
    restrictive legislation of the 1920s.
  • 35,000,000 Europeans had reached these shores
  • 4,500,000 from Ireland,
  • 4,000,000 from Great Britain,
  • 6,000,000 from central Europe,
  • 2,000,000 from the Scandinavian lands,
  • 5,000,000 from Italy,
  • 8,000,000 from eastern Europe,
  • and 3,000,000 from the Balkans.
  • (This was America. Much of Will Herbergs data
    came from Handlins study cited earlier. See
    Herberg, p. 8.)

21
The Religious Situation In The USA from 1775 to
1950
22
The First Period of Change from 1775 to 1924
  • There was the status of Christianity in 1775
    and the changes within the population in light of
    Christianity during this period.
  • It was clear that the main reason that people
    migrated to the New World was primarily for
    religious freedom. There were other minor
    reasons.
  • The percent of Christians in the colonies in 1775
    was about 12 and the majority were Protestants
  • The Bill of Rights the Western frontier
    resulted in a marked change in religion in America

23
The Six (6) Leading Church Groups in the Colonies
in 1780
  • Congregational (745 churches)
  • Anglican/Episcopal (405 churches)
  • Presbyterian (490 churches)
  • Lutheran (235 churches)
  • Methodist (Less than 200 churches)
  • Baptist (About 200 churches)
  • Catholics are not included in this comparison

24
The Six (6) Leading Church Groups in the USA in
1850
  • Methodist
  • Baptist
  • Presbyterian
  • Lutheran
  • Congregational
  • Episcopal
  • (See Neil Brauns Laity Mobilized Masters Thesis
    for more discussion of this dynamic within US
    history.)

25
The Six (6) Leading Church Groups in the USA in
1950
  • Baptist was first
  • Methodist
  • Lutheran
  • Presbyterian
  • Episcopal
  • Congregational was last
  • (See Jim Slacks and Jim Maroneys IMB study of
    the principles and practices of church planting.)

26
Discerning The Lay of the Land
  • In fact, the seven in 1775 were exactly
    reversed by 1950.
  • By 1850 Methodists were the largest Protestant
    denomination in the USA and Baptists were second.
  • By 1950 Southern Baptists were the largest of
    the seven and Methodists were second.

27
Discerning The Lay of the Land
  • It is very informative from a historic
    evangelization and missiological perspective to
    follow and compare the growth dynamics among the
    7 largest Protestant denominations in 1775 with
    the 7 largest Protestant denominations in 1950.
  • Baptists in 1775, who had not yet divided into
    two major Baptist groups (Northern and Southern),
    were the smallest of all seven Protestant
    denominations. Methodists were next to last.
  • What happened that caused this turn-around?

28
Why Did These Groups Grow Why Did the Order End
Up Reversed?
  • Congregationalists whose polity was thought to
    be best fitted for the frontier went though an
    Old Lights and New Lights theological
    controversy followed by a comity agreement with
    Presbyterians. Neither of them recovered from
    that missiological mistake.
  • Yet, it was Congregationalists who brought the
    initial and major political and religious group
    with a manifesto to the New Land. And, in 1900,
    Congregationalists had 1,000 missionaries on
    foreign fields, only to see them dwindle during
    the 1900s.

29
Why Did These Groups Grow Why Did the Order End
Up Reversed?
  • Anglican churches were identified with the
    English colonizers, with the causes of the
    Revolution and never overcame that image until
    they changed their name. Few realize that many
    of the Puritans and what today are Low Church
    Anglicans had gone with Wesley, forming the
    foundations of the Methodist church in both
    England and the Colonies/USA.

30
Why Did These Groups Grow Why Did the Order End
Up Reversed?
  • Presbyterians suffered from the comity
    agreement between them and the Congregationalists,
    and like the Episcopal churches, their
    institutional preference of land and building,
    and requirements for a theologically degreed,
    denominationally chosen and installed pastor kept
    them off the edges of the frontier.
  • The institutional denominations lagged an
    average of 200 miles behind the frontier where
    more settled communities were like them and could
    afford them.

31
Why Did These Groups Grow Why Did the Order End
Up Reversed?
  • Lutherans seem to be the strange anomaly among
    the six denominations. Lutherans did make it to
    the frontier and did grow. However, persecution
    and lack of a colony base in New England pushed
    Lutherans to Missouri territory and northward
    into Canada where they settled grew some
    distance from persecution.

32
How did Methodists become First in 1850 and
Remain Second in 1950?
  • Methodists had a strategy, a carefully defined
    and carefully managed geographic circuit plan
    that fitted the frontier. Their plan was the
    method found in Methodist. The plan,
    designed by Wesley for England, which was never
    accepted there fit the US frontier beautifully.
    (This is in quotes for a reason.)

33
How did Methodists become First in 1850 and
Remain Second in 1950?
  • When the rigors of circuit riding in the early
    days, as the Church moved over the country, are
    brought before the mind and imagination, the
    question is frequently asked, How did they stand
    it? The answer is They didnt. They died
    under it. No group of men ever lived up more
    fully to the truth, He that looseth his life
    shall find it. (pp. 42-43, Halford E. Luccock,
    Endless Line of Splendor. The Advance for Christ
    and His Church of The Methodist Church publisher,
    Chicago, Illinois, 1950)

34
How did Methodists become First in 1850 and
Remain Second in 1950?
  • They died, most of them, before their careers
    were much more than begun. Of the 650 preachers
    who had joined the Methodist itinerancy by the
    opening of the 19th century, about 500 had to
    locate, a term that was used for those too
    worn-out to travel further. Many of the rest had
    to take periods for recuperation. Others located
    not because of health, but by reason of lack of
    support and the desire to marry and establish a
    home. (Luccock)

35
How did Methodists become First in 1850 and
Remain Second in 1950?
  • Of the first 737 circuit riders of the
    Conferences to diethat is, all who died up to
    1847
  • 203 were between 25 and 35 years of age
  • 121 between 35 and 45.
  • Nearly half died before they were 30 years old.
  • Of 672 of those first preachers whose records we
    have in full,
  • two-thirds died before they had been able to
    render 12 years of service.
  • Just one less than 200 died within the first five
    years. (Luccock)

36
How did Methodists become First in 1850 and
Remain Second in 1950?
  • Many circuits were from 300 to 600 miles in
    lengthFor instance, in 1791, Freeborn Garrettson
    was assigned to a circuit which included almost
    half of what is now the state of New YorkIn 1814
    James B. Finley, on the Cross Creek Circuit,
    Ohio, had a circuit covering more than two
    counties, and preached 32 times on every round.
    The salary schedule has an eloquence of its own.
    Cash was almost unknown. In 1821 Benjamin T.
    Crouch records receiving only 38 toward his
    years allowance. The same year Peter Cartwright
    received the highest salary in the Kentucky
    Conference--238. But when he moved, with his
    wife and six children, to the Sangamon Circuit,
    Illinois, he received 40, all told, for the
    year. (pp. 44-45, Luccock)

37
How did Baptists become Second in 1850 and Grow
to First by 1950?
  • Methodism grew faster until after 1850, but
    Baptist growth from 1800 to 1960 is unparalleled.
    From a little over 100,000 in 1800, they were
    approaching 20 million by 1960. (Gaustad 1962
    as quoted by Braun)
  • The basic reason is that Baptist theology and
    polity fitted them better for the frontier than
    any other denomination of churches.

38
Growth Characteristics of Baptists
  • Each local church was autonomous
  • Churches were congregational in polity
  • Baptist church members going west were encouraged
    to plant a church if no Baptist church existed
    where they settled
  • Churches that emerged met in homes, saloons,
    hardware stores, barns, stables, school rooms,
    under trees, etc.

39
Growth Characteristics of Baptists
  • Local churches found their pastor within the
    maturing believers in their emerging church
  • Local churches called, recognized and ordained
    their own pastors
  • Experienced pastors tended to itinerate,
    pastoring 2-4 other churches
  • As frontier towns settled in and grew, some
    churches sought pastors from more settled
    frontier towns to the east

40
Growth Characteristics of Baptists
  • By the mid to late 1800s, in settled territory
    behind the frontiers leading edge, as churches
    there increased in number, in membership size and
    stability, with pastors of longer tenure in the
    pastorate, requests arose for training
  • This led to Baptist schools being started

41
The Most Common Growth Reason
  • Sweet, Herberg, Latourete, Braun and multiple
    other historians said that the most common growth
    factors were 1) the starting of churches in
    homes where land and building for a church was
    not a condition for having and being a church
    and 2) lay preachers and pastors, most of whom
    were bi-vocational.

42
The Lay of the Land Discerned
  • Over time, for sure by the early 1900s, as
    religious status became the leading
    characteristic of an American, the Bible Belt was
    forming. The American culture was developing a
    stronger Christian ethic, with Christian values
    as its base. This base was in practice for
    some, and only in the awareness or
    conscience-ought to stage for others. It is
    out of this base that the terms WASP (White
    Anglo-Saxon Protestant) and Judeo-Christian
    emerged in the mid-1900s.

43
The Major Concern of the Immigrants by the 1900s
  • Their big concern was the preservation of
    their way of life above all, the transplanting
    of their churches. (pp. 10-11, Herberg.)
  • In his footnotes Herberg quotes Marcus L.
    Hansens research in The Problem of the Third
    Generation Immigrant (Augustana Historical
    Society, Rock Island, Ill., 1938, p. 15 who said
    The church was the first, the most important,
    and the most significant institution that the
    immigrants established.

44
By 1950, Who Was an American?
  • By the early 1900s being an American came out
    of a degree of melding of three generations of
    ethnic groups into being Americans.
  • Herbergs research discovered that by the 1930s,
    A Triple Melting Pot situation in the US had
    developed as the norm. Ethnic migration saw
    their language and some of their culture receded
    somewhat to the background. English had become a
    practical acquisition of most ethnics, but their
    religion persisted to become the ethnics major
    identity.

45
By 1950, Who Was an American?
  • The singular most identifying characteristic
    among most ethnics who migrated to the USA from
    1775 to 1924 was their religious status. As
    their language became mostly English and as they
    gave up some of their cultural identity, the sum
    of their status as Americans settled into three
    acceptable identifying religious
    markersProtestant, Catholic or Jew.
  • So, by the 1950s in the USA the identification
    of an American was according to one of these
    three categoriesProtestant, Catholic or Jew.

46
(No Transcript)
47
A Look At Culture and Religion in the USA1945 to
1960
  • Again, the three primary researchers and authors
    of what have become classic works concerning
    American immigration were Handlin, Hansen
    Herberg.

48
By 1950, Who Was an American?
  • In review of what went before, the singular
    most identifying characteristic among most
    ethnics who migrated to the USA from 1775 to 1924
    was their religious status. As their language
    became mostly English and as they gave up some of
    their cultural identity, the sum of their status
    as Americans settled into three acceptable
    identifying religious markersProtestant,
    Catholic or Jew.
  • So, by the 1950s in the USA the identification
    of an American was according to one of these
    three categoriesProtestant, Catholic or Jew.

49
The USA Religious Scene in 1950
  • In 1775 church members were only 10 to 12 of the
    US population
  • By 1910 church members had grown to 43
  • By 1960 church members had grown to 60
    (pp.33-34, Herberg)

50
The USA Religious Scene in 1950 A Consideration
of Conversions
  • Conversions from one community to the other
    take place, but they seem to be very small and do
    not appreciably affect the over-all picture.
    (Herberg, p. 160) (Herberg quotes the Yearbook of
    American Churches, edition for 1960, pp. 261-262
    for his data. In the research Herberg quotes
    140,414 as the Catholics record of conversions to
    Catholicism from Protestantism and he used The
    1959 National Catholic Almanac, p. 407 for this
    information. This data is for the year 1957.
    For a more in-depth study, see Thomas J.M.
    Burkes Did Four Million Catholics Become
    Protestants?, America, April 10, 1954.

51
Religion in USA in the 1950s A Consideration of
Conversions
  • Burkes article, a survey by the American
    Institute of Public Opinion (a Gallup poll) in
    1955 indicated that of an adult population of
    96,000,000, only about 4 per cent no longer
    belonged to the religious community of their
    birth of these 1,400,000 were Protestants who
    had originally been Catholics, and 1,400,000 were
    Catholics who had originally been Protestants,
    about 1,000,000 had made changes of some other
    kind. See also John A. OBrien, You Too Can Win
    Souls (Macmillan, 1955). (Herbergs footnotes on
    pages 170-171.)

52
A Study of Marriage Patterns from 1870 to 1940
  • In the early 1940s, Ruby Jo Kennedy undertook
    an investigation of intermarriage trends in New
    Haven from 1870 to 1940. She published her
    findings in the American Journal of Sociology for
    January 1944 under the significant title, Single
    or Triple Melting Pot?The years 1870, 1900,
    1930, and 1940 were isolated for detailed
    examinationThe large nationality groups in New
    Haven, Mrs. Kennedy found, represent a triple
    division on religious grounds Jewish, Protestant
    (British-American, German, and Scandinavian), and
    Catholic (Irish, Italian, and Polish) In its
    early immigrant days, each of these ethnic groups
    tended to be endogamous with the years, however,
    people began to marry outside the group.
    (Herbergs quote of Kennedy data on page 33)

53
A Study of Marriage Patterns from 1870 to 1940
  • Kennedy found Irish marriage was 93.05 per
    cent in 1870 74.75 per cent in 1900, 74.25 per
    cent in 1930, and 45.06 per cent in 1940 German
    in-marriage was 86.67 per cent in 1870, 55.26 per
    cent in 1900, 39.84 per cent in 1930, and 27.19
    per cent in 1940 for the Italians and the Poles,
    the comparable figures were 97.71 per cent and
    100 per cent respectively in 1900, 86.71 and
    68.04 per cent in 1930, and 81.89 per cent and
    52.78 per cent in 1940. But, while strict
    ethnic endogamy is loosening, religious endogamy
    is persisting (Herbergs quote of Kennedy data
    on page 33)

54
The USA Religious Scene in 1950 A Consideration
of Inter-Marriage
  • By the 1950s, religion not only divided into
    the three pools but those in each religious
    category tended to marry only within their pool.
    Hollingshead found in a study that
  • 97.1 of Jewish pool married only Jewish spouses
  • 93.8 of Catholics married only Catholic spouses
  • 74.4 of Protestants married only Protestant
    spouses (pp.33-34, Herberg. He is quoting the
    study of Hollingshead.)

55
A Study of Marriage Patterns from 1870 to 1940
  • Members of Catholic stocks married Catholics in
    95.35 per cent of the cases in 1870, 85.78 per
    cent in 1900, 82.05 per cent in 1930, and 83.71
    in 1940 members of Protestant stocks married
    Protestants in 99.11 per cent of the cases in
    1870, 90.66 per cent in 1900, 78.19 per cent in
    1930, and 79.72 per cent in 1940 Jews married
    Jews in 100 per cent of the cases in 1870, 98.82
    per cent in 1900, 97.01 per cent in 1930, and
    94.32 per cent in 1940. Future cleavages, in
    Mrs. Kennedys opinion, will therefore be along
    religious lines rather than along nationality
    lines as in the past.Cultural i.e. ethnic
    lines may fade, but religious barriers are
    holding fast.When marriage crosses religious
    barriers, as it often does, religion still plays
    a prominent role, especially among Catholics, in
    that such marriages are often conditioned upon,
    and result in, one of the partners being brought
    into the religious community of the other.
    The traditional single melting pot idea must
    be abandoned, and a new conception, which we term
    the triple melting pot theory of American
    assimilation, will take its place, as the true
    expression of what is happening to the various
    nationality groups in the United States.The
    triple melting pot type of assimilation is
    occurring through intermarriage, with
    Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism serving
    as the three fundamental bulwarksThe different
    nationalities are merging, but within three
    religious compartments rather than
    indiscriminatelyA triple religious cleavage,
    rather than a multilinear nationality cleavage,
    therefore seems likely to characterize American
    society in the future. (pp. 32-33, Herberg)

56
The Breadth and Depth (Evidences) of these
Religious Characteristics
  • By 1950, ones personal identity, political
    qualification, social status, marriage, and a few
    other functional American categories were
    primarily determined by their identify with one
    of the three that was most appropriate for ethnic
    background and geographic location in the USA.
  • (See Will Herbergs Protestant-Catholic-Jew.)

57
The Consequences of this Religious Environment
  • It was beginning to be true in the late 1930s,
    increased as being true in the 1940s, throughout
    the 1950s and into the early1960s that, to be
    elected to a significant state and national
    office in the USA, the candidate had to
    represent, or make the public think they
    represented, Judeo-Christian values or he or she
    was seldom elected to a major offices.
  • This was especially true in the Bible Belt of
    the USA. However, except in pervasively Catholic
    areas, it was difficult for a Roman Catholic to
    be elected to a national office.

58
The Consequences of this Religious Environment
  • These Judeo-Christian values that can be seen
    in the background of the US Constitution, had
    emerged as the broad American ideal by the
    mid-1800s and were commonly taught and nourished
    in the US public schools from the 1800s to the
    1970s.
  • It was the 1960s before the USA elected a
    Catholic as president for fear that a Catholic
    president would allow the Pope in Rome to
    influence American political decisions in ways
    unfavorable to Protestants and Protestant values.
    Until Reagan, no divorcee had every been elected
    as President of the USA.

59
The Consequences of this Religious Environment
  • Southern Baptists, by 1950, not only emerged as
    the largest and most influential Protestant
    denomination in the USA, they existed
    predominantly in the Bible Belt.
  • Methodists and Southern Baptists were the
    major denominations that produced the Bible
    Belt.
  • The people who produced the Methodist and
    Baptist denominations and the Bible Belt were
    migrant peoples, mostly from Europe, mostly
    northern Europe.
  • Most of these had fled Europe looking for
    religious freedom, while the others came to the
    colonies looking for decent work, land, a better
    lifestyle and freedom.

60
The Consequences of this Religious Environment
  • Southern Baptist evangelism and church planting
    methods, or approaches, developed in the midst of
    this history and upon this base of
    Judeo-Christian values. They were assumed to
    exist by most citizens in the USA.
  • These Judeo-Christian values permeated the
    justice and legal system of the USA and were
    assumed to be the best rules to live and do
    business by in the USA. (See Herbergs book
    Protestant, Catholic, and Jew.)

61
The Lay of the Land Discerned
  • Consequently, Southern Baptists, and other
    evangelical denominations, and Para-church
    agencies such as Post-WWII Navigators, Campus
    Crusades, Inter-Varsity, and others, understood
    the assumptions and aspirations of typical
    Americans in the USA during this era. Thus, this
    was the situation just prior to the next stage of
    immigration and history.

62
Looking Back on this Period from 1945 to 1960
  • We now look back on the period from 1945 to
    1960 as Americas most formative and significant
    religious ingathering period in American history.
    This does not minimize the affects and the
    magnitude of the Great Awakenings in the 1700s,
    or the Great Prayer Revival in 1850. However,
    the growth of religious denominationsProtestants,
    Catholics and Jewswithin this period speaks for
    itself. Southern Baptists grew by 100 in this
    period.

63
A Troubling Reality of the Most Homogeneous and
Religious Era
  • This is at least part of the picture presented
    by religion in contemporary America. Christians
    flocking to church, yet forgetting all about
    Christ when it comes to naming the most
    significant events in history men and women
    valuing the Bible as revelation, purchasing and
    distributing it by the millions, yet apparently
    seldom reading it themselves. Every aspect of
    contemporary religious life reflects this
    paradoxpervasive secularism amid mounting
    religiosity, the strengthening of the religious
    structure in spite of increasing
    secularismAmerica seems to be at once the most
    religious and the most secular of nationscan
    there be much doubt that, by and large, the
    religion which actually prevails among Americans
    today has lost much of its authentic Christian
    (or Jewish) content. (p. 2-3, Herberg)

64
Major Missiological Issues to Notice
  • As the American population became
    sociologically more homogeneously Anglo and as
    most of the American population had come to see
    itself as either Protestant, Catholic or Jew a
    number of things occurred
  • Most any kind of evangelism program that a
    Christian worked tended to work (meaning
    produced fruit)
  • Programs and methods tended to work across minor
    cultural boundaries

65
Major Missiological Issues to Notice
  • Programs, methods, approaches, whatever one wants
    to call them, became more and more generic. This
    was especially the case with Southern Baptists
    who were mainly in the Bible Belt
  • Consequently Southern Baptists came to believe
    that one size, meaning one model, fits all, and
    they did to a great degree then, especially in
    the Bible Belt

66
Major Missiological Issues to Notice
  • However, when Baptists hit the road and took
    their evangelism teams to the Northeast, to the
    Midwest and to the Northwest, they tended to
    attract primarily transplanted Southerners who
    had a firm Christian base.
  • And, when the Baptists were out of the Protestant
    Bible Belt and in Catholic territories of the
    1950s they met the we dont swap religions
    ethnic identify that created America and
    Americans of the 1950s.

67
Major Missiological Issues to Notice
  • Those transplanted churches were soon sealed off
    those churches from the locals. For, when the
    few locals who did come to see what church was
    all about, they saw foreign southern folks,
    heard sermons that assumed evangelical, Christian
    values assumptions with southern Bible Belt
    terms.
  • Most locals did not stay and join those
    non-local, southern churches, for they did not
    engage the locals worldview. Fifty years later,
    most of those churches are as they were then, or
    smaller.

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The Third Period of American History 1965-Present
  • The most homogeneous era and the most religious
    period in US history soon
  • eroded into the most secular period the US has
    ever known
  • entered, became and continues to escalate into a
    separation of church and state era that never
    existed in previous US history and that is
    totally out of character with the intentions of
    the founding fathers

70
The Third Period of American History 1965-Present
  • The most homogeneous era in US history and the
    most religious period in US history soon
  • saw a renewed influx of ethnic immigrants who are
    on their way to surpassing the numbers which
    occurred from 1775 to 1924
  • began experiencing ethnic immigration that,
    except for ethnics coming from Latin America,
    come from very different cultural, worldview, and
    religious stock

71
The Third Period of American History 1965-Present
  • The most homogeneous era in US history and the
    most religious period in US history soon
  • was faced with a large percentage of ethnics from
    many different ethnic groups who want to keep not
    only their religion as did those of the 1800s,
    but who in addition want to keep their own
    language and their own culture as well
  • had ethnics, some of whom are compromising enough
    to learn English at a work level

72
The Third Period of American History 1965-Present
  • The most homogeneous era in US history and the
    most religious period in US history soon
  • experienced immigrant ethnics who want the
    American dream but who do not want to assimilate
    into American culture to the point of giving up
    language, culture and religion yet, who want all
    of the rights of any traditional American
    citizen and who soon
  • met Christians who do not see them as, or relate
    to them as, Jesus panta ta ethne.

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Missiological Issues This Generation Faces
  • Attempts to revive and repackage methods and
    approaches used during the most homogeneous and
    religious period in US history, that of the
    1950s
  • Following the lead of secular, market-driven,
    demographic, sociological categories, that
    adequately locate and define ethnic Anglos, an
    ever-shrinking pool within the American
    population as very diverse ethnics increase

76
Missiological Issues This Generation Faces
  • Assuming and search for generic, silver-bullet,
    models that will work among each and every one of
    the ethnic groups throughout the USA
  • And, this is when the old 1950s methods do not
    even work today among a very different pool of
    Anglos from those of the 1950s
  • Post-modern Anglos of today do not resemble nor
    respond to programs of homogeneous and religious
    Anglos of the 1950s

77
Missiological Issues of Today
  • The American population continues to move away
    from Judeo-Christian values
  • Two entire generations of school kids have not
    been introduced to Judeo-Christian values and
    worldview assumptions
  • This is very much the truth in the cities and on
    college university campuses

78
Missiological Issues of Today
  • The political landscape has changed drastically.
    The attempt is to move Christianity out of the
    market place and out of public view into the
    privacy of homes or church buildings.
  • Political campaigns are not friendly to up-front
    declarations of Christian truth and obvious
    Christian positions.

79
Missiological Issues of Today
  • Based upon biblical and pedagogical evidence,
    each ethnic group should be engaged in the idiom
    of its heart language. (See the Acts 2 miracle
    of the Pentecost visitors hearing in their own
    heart language.)
  • Worldview is at the heart of ta ethne
    engagement, yet is a hardly understood and
    followed concept today
  • Worldview is laid down in the life of each person
    in the idiom of their heart language

80
Missiological Issues of Today
  • What is beneath the issue of heart language and
    worldview?
  • Pedagogy, psychology, psychiatry and anthropology
    tells us that by the time a child is 4-5 years
    old, he or she, has accrued from 45-60 of his or
    her worldview. These same researchers tell us
    that by 11-12 years of age, 80 of a persons
    worldview is formed.
  • To engage and influence a persons worldview in
    favor of a Christian worldview it should be
    engaged in the persons heart language idiom

81
Missiological Issues of Today
  • What is beneath the issue of heart language and
    worldview?
  • Generic approaches and generic content that does
    not work in a persons heart language and that
    does not address a persons specific worldview
    issues has little opportunity of influencing that
    persons worldview
  • To not engage a persons worldview is to face
    syncretism in that persons life

82
Missiological Issues of Today
  • What is beneath the issue of heart language and
    worldview?
  • Even if an ethnic learns English, the worldview,
    to be engaged, should be engaged in the persons
    heart language for that is the language in which
    worldview beliefs, values and habits reside
  • Today, a large number of the ethnics are coming
    from Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, Animistic,
    Catholic and Post-Modern cultures

83
Missiological Issues of Today
  • What is beneath the issue of heart language and
    worldview?
  • Copying materials developed for one ethnic group
    and translating them into the language of another
    ethnic group will not address the second groups
    worldview unless they have the same language and
    worldview. The IMB did it for years and reaped
    syncretism from it.
  • The setting ethnics live in, such as urban or
    rural, has less to do with evangelizing ethnics
    than does their language and worldview

84
Missiological Issues of Today
  • As the US experiences the entry of record numbers
    of different ethnic peoples with their own
    individual languages that produced their own
    peculiar ethnic worldview beliefs, values and
    lifestyles, there is the high priority need to
  • Segment society according to each and every
    ethnic group within the USA
  • Encourage, learn about and assist in the People
    Groups Info partnership between the IMB and NAMB
    research departments

85
The Paramount Ta EthneFacing America Today
86
Americas Most Critical Hour
  • Multiple ethnic groups are migrating to the US
    and Canada today who have various heart
    languages, and various ethnic worldviews, yet who
    embrace the same religionIslam.
  • Even though they have their own individual
    languages and worldviews, they share the aim of
    living permanently in the US, along with their
    aim of being the dominant religion in America.
    They aim for it to be the only religion in
    America.

87
Americas Most Critical Hour
  • Islam is already on its way to becoming the
    dominant religion in Europe. Scholars who seldom
    ever agree on any one issue, political or
    religious or secular agree that Islam has Europe
    in its grasp and will soon have Canada, followed
    soon after by Islams possession of the US.
    Possession to Islam means socially, religiously,
    politically and economically without any rivals.

88
  • Document prepared by
  • Dr. James B. Slack
  • IMB, SBC
  • August 2006
  • For NAMB-SBC Leadership Meeting

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90
End of Presentation
91
  • No one who attempts to see the contemporary
    religious situation in the United States in
    perspective can fail to be struck by the
    extraordinary pervasiveness of religious
    identification among present-day Americans.
    Almost everybody in the United States today
    locates himself in one or another of the three
    great religious communities. Asked to identify
    themselves in terms of religious preference, 95
    per cent of the American people, according to a
    recent public opinion survey, declared themselves
    to be either Protestants, Catholics, or Jews (68
    percent Protestants, 23 per cent Catholics, 4 per
    cent Jews) only 5 per cent admitted to no
    preference. (p. 46, Herberg. Herberg gained
    this data from the Catholic Digest, January 1953.
    The survey was conducted by Ben Gaffin and
    Associates. Only adults over 18 are considered.)

92
1950s
  • Much the same may be said about the high and
    growing repute of religion in the American public
    mind. Religion is given continued public and
    political approvalGodless is a powerful
    epithetAt least nominal public acceptance of
    religion tends to be a prerequisite to political
    success (Herberg quotes Williams American
    Society, pp. 326, 336.).It was not always so
    there was a time when an atheist or agnostic like
    Robert C. Ingersoll, who went around the country
    defying God and making anti-religious speeches,
    could nevertheless occupy a respected and
    influential position in American politics. Today
    that would be quite inconceivable, a professed
    unbeliever would be anathema to either of the
    big parties and would have no chance whatever in
    political life. (p. 51, Herberg)
  • Congressional Religious Affiliations-1957
  • The contrast between the days of Ingersoll and
    our day, when every candidate for public office
    is virtually required to testify to his high
    esteem for religion, measures the position that
    religion as a value or institution, has
    acquired in the American public mind. Of the 528
    members of the two houses of the 85th Congress,
    only 4 gave no religious affiliation 416
    registered as Protestants, 95 as Roman Catholics,
    12 as Jews, and one as a Sikh. (p. 52, Herberg.
    Herberg quotes the Report of the Legislative
    Reference Service of the Library of Congress,
    released April 6, 1957.)

93
1950s
  • The figures for church membership tell the same
    story but in greater detail. Religious
    statistics in this country are notoriously
    inaccurate, but the trend is so well marked that
    it overrides all margins of error. In the
    quarter of a century between 1926 and 1950 the
    population of continental United States increased
    28.6 per cent, membership of religious bodies
    increased 59.8 per cent in other words, church
    membership grew more than twice as fast as
    population. Protestants increased 63.7 per cent,
    Catholics 53.9 per cent, Jews 22.5 per cent.
    Among Protestants, however, the increase varied
    considerably as between denominations Baptist
    increase was well over 100 per cent, some
    holiness sects grew even more rapidly, while
    the figure for the Episcopal Church was only 36.7
    per cent, for the Methodist Church 32.2 per cent,
    for the Northern Presbyterians 22.4 per cent, and
    for the Congregationalists 21.1 per cent. (p. 47,
    Herberg. Herberg found in Information Service,
    March 8, 1952 that The trend continues. In the
    thirty-two years between 1926 and 1957, the
    population of continental United States increased
    about 45 per cent while the membership of
    religious bodies increased nearly 92 per cent,
    more than twice as fast. (Yearbook of American
    Churches, edition for 1959, p. 294.)
  • In 1950 total church membership was reckoned at
    85,319,000, or about 57 per cent of the total
    population. In 1958 it was 109,557,741, or about
    63 per cent, marking an all-time high in the
    nations history. (p. 47, Herberg. Data taken
    from Yearbook of American Churches, edition for
    1960, pp. 258, 279.)

94
The First Period of Change from 1775 to 1924
  • There were some noble human events during this
    period of unprecedented migration, but there were
    also so many ignoble events when viewed from the
    perspective of the American Indians.
  • San Antonio as an illustration of Catholic
    mistakes
  • Jonesborough and the Free State of Franklin as an
    illustration of Baptist ethics and church
    planting
  • There never has been a significant period of
    evangelization of American Indians in US/Canada
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