A Review of American History to Understand Americas Current Cultural Status and The Implications for

1
A Review of American History to Understand
Americas Current Cultural Status and The
Implications for Evangelization(Part 1)

• Original Edition Prepared For
• NAMBs 2006 Leadership Summit
• Current Revision Prepared For
• SBC State Convention Directors of Mission
• Missouri, Oklahoma South Carolina Staff
  Meetings in 2007
• Prepared by Dr. James B. Slack, Missiologist of
  IMB, SBC

2
A Note To The Viewers Usersof this PowerPoint
Presentation

• This PowerPoint presentation is supported by at
  least two other Word source documents. The major
  one of the two is Frontiers of Lostness in the US.

3
The Aim and Context of this Ethnic Immigration
History Presentation

• The aim of this presentation is to explore and
  present a history of immigration into the USA
  from 1775 to the present with a view to exposing
  major implications concerning church planting
  then and now.

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Section 1 Biblical Backgroundfor Evangelizers
5
Context of This Presentation

• All that is presented in this biblical
  background section goes at least back to Abraham
  when God moved to make Abraham the father of
  ethnic peoples, ethnic evangelization and ethnic
  blessings that extended even to the families
  (phulagi in Greek).
• Genesis 121 Now the Lord said to Abram, Go out
  from your country and from your family and from
  your father's house, into the land to which I
  will be your guide 2 And I will make of you a
  great nation ethnosan ethnic people group),
  blessing you and making your name great and you
  will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who
  bless you, And I will curse him who curses you
  And in you all the families (tribes, clans,
  peoples) of the earth shall be blessed."
• To bring Himself as Saviour into this world in
  an incarnate state, God chose Abraham as the
  basis for developing a distinct ethnic people
  groupIsrael (the people of God). Israel would
  be the channel through which the lineage and
  heritage of Jesus would flow and come into this
  world in the flesh.

6
Context of This Presentation

• God promised Abraham and us through Abraham that
  He would make of Abraham a great nation (ethnic
  people group) through whom (Israel-the people of
  God) He would engage and blessn not only every
  ethnic group but also every tribe
  (phulagitranslated as tribe and family that
  follows within the lineage of a clan, a tribe, an
  ethnic group).
• Throughout Gods developing of His ethnic
  people group Israel, God continually pleaded that
  Israel put Him first, clean up their
  life--personal and national-- and ultimately take
  His hope of salvation to the panta ta ethne
  (each and every ethnic group). All of this
  history from Abraham in Genesis is summarized in
  Christs Great Commission (Matthew 2819 20).

7
Context of Presentation

• For Israel from its beginning in Abraham unto
  spiritual Israel now (each Christian and each
  Church), the panta ta ethne was and is the
  focus of making disciples. The panta ta
  ethne obligation can be seen in the Old
  Testament in the stranger in thy home, the
  stranger (ethnic) in thy midst.
• On occasion in the O.T., as with Jonah, God
  called individual witnesses to take His message
  to other ethnic groups. In Jonahs eyes, Nineveh
  was a major enemy of Israel, deserving to be
  damned forever. In Gods eyes the people of
  Nineveh were a lost ethne to be evangelized.
  And, God worked to make him go.

8
Context of Title Presentation

• The story of Jonah is one of a number of
  stories as to how God reminded Israel that their
  mission in life was to be the channel of the
  Messiah to lost ethnes. Israel was to be the
  messenger to the lost (enemy or not) concerning
  Gods promise of salvation.
• In this case, with significant coaxing, Jonah
  came through, Nineveh was delivered, and Israel
  continued in its move toward its destiny. Even
  then, Jonahs ethnocentricity would not allow him
  to enjoy the conversion of an entire city. All
  Christians face this same issue of the ethnic
  people groups, friends or foes among us, who need
  to be evangelized.

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Context of Title Presentation

• However, in multiple other situations like the
  one Jonah faced, Israel did not respond to Gods
  coaxing to clean up their lives and be His
  messenger to the panta ta ethne. As a result,
  God punished Israel by allowing Israels enemies
  to occupy Israel, the Holy Land, allowed them to
  take His people into captivity. Only by means of
  a remnant that God saved and brought out of those
  in captivity did Israel survive. Throughout the
  Testament history it continued to be difficult
  for Israel to remember and respond to Gods
  mission to the panta ta ethne through themHis
  chosen people.

10
Context of Title Presentation

• In the last two years, Acts 18 has been a
  major theme of the SBC and the focus of many SBC
  events. Southern Baptists could have no more
  biblical nor historically appropriate theme at
  this time in its history.
• However, many fail to interpret Acts 18 in the
  context of the panta ta ethne in Matthew 2819
  20 which is telling the new Christian believers
  that they are to be conscious of, identify,
  engage and evangelize every ethnic group (panta
  ta ethne) in ones Jerusalem every ethnic group
  in ones Judea every ethnic group in ones
  Samaria and every ethnic group in ones
  uttermost. This connection is much easier to
  grasp when one reads Matthew 2819 20 followed
  immediately by Acts 1 and the illustration of the
  panta ta ethne in their Jerusalem in Acts 2.
• My thanks goes out to my fellow presenters
  during this NAMB leaders summit for parts of
  their presentations that have laid the foundation
  for this topic. (Remember or notice that the
  first edition of this presentation was first
  developed and presented during a leadership
  summit of NAMB when multiple presenters preceded
  this presentation.)

11
Contextual Issues other Presenters Covered During
the Summit

• I am grateful that Dr. Towns of Liberty
  University reviewed the foundation of ta ethne
  as Gods mandate from Christ and the Scripture
  for all believers of all times.
• From the time of Gods call and promise to
  Abraham and beyond to Jesus giving His Great
  Commissions ta ethne focus, an ethnolinguistic
  people group focus has existed for all believers.
  Acts 18 and all of Acts 1 2 underlines the
  Great Commissions ethnic mandate.

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Contextual Issues other Presenters Covered

• I am grateful to Dr. Roy Fish for talking about
  historic awakening type growth in the 1950s and
  about the importance of Worldview awareness in
  ministering to any ethnic of any time.
• I am also grateful to Dr. Lawless for talking
  about Exegeting the City and giving attention
  to the variety of ethnic, Great Commission,
  people groups during his Acts 18 presentations.
• I am also committed to Dr. Fishs worldview
  emphasis because dealing with worldview is one
  of basic reasons for a biblical ta ethne focus
  and mandate.

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Contextual Issues Assumed As Background

• Acts 18 has less to do with the actual or
  symbolic geographical implications related to
  Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the uttermost
  than to its link with the Great Commissions
  panta ta ethne focus. Thus, a panta ta ethne
  focus starts in Jerusalem and remains a priority
  in each of those geographic settings. Luke 24,
  Matthew 28 and Acts 2 present Jesus as placing
  the seeing and engaging of the panta ta
  ethne (ethnic engagement) in ones heart
  language foremost in the life of every believer.

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Echoing a Pleading of God about His ta ethne
Focus Given to Israel Christians

• The Great Commissions panta ta ethne mandate
  is
• to engage every ethnolinguistic group in the
  world
• to engage each ethne in their heart language, and
• to engage them at their worldview belief, habits,
  values and living level--a paramount obligation
  for every Christian in the Great Commission and
  elsewhere in the Scriptures.
• At the same time, a people group focus does not
  rule out engaging society according to other
  groupings such as students, the classes, etc., as
  long as the primary commitment is that of
  engaging every ethnic group in ones midst.

15
Echoing a Pleading of God about His ta ethne
Focus Given to Israel Christians

• Even though other groupings of people are
  allowed, if a panta ta ethne priority has not
  been given by Christs followers to the various
  ethnics in any given geographic settingones
  Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria or uttermostthen the
  Christians in those geographic settings should
  set about to aggressively identify the ethnics
  who live there. They should establish a priority
  evangelism focus among each ethnic group to be
  true to Christs Great Commission.

16
Echoing a Pleading of God about His ta ethne
Focus

• The issue of worldview rests upon the following
• Every sane person has a Worldviewbeliefs,
  values, habits, and lifestyle practices common to
  the person, the persons family his ethne.
• Worldview is laid down in the idiom of the heart
  language of each person as that person develops
  from a new born baby to an adult.
• Engaging a worldview is most effectively done
  through the persons ethnic heart language.

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Questions God Pleads That We Ask and Answer in
Every Generation!

• Who are the specific ta ethne who are outside
  our doors in our current Jerusalem and beyond?
• Have we taken the time to identify the stranger
  in our midst and the strangers (ethneethnic
  people groups) at our door in our Jerusalem?
• What is the strangers (ethnes) purpose and
  spiritual status in our home setting, in our
  town, our county (possibly our Judea), our state
  and country (possibly our uttermost)?
• Are our SBC churches in the USA, as Israel was in
  the Old Testament era, so engrossed in our own
  kind of peoplemainly the Anglo ta ethne--such
  that other ta ethne are seldom even seen by us?
  

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Questions God Pleads That We Ask and Answer in
Every Generation!

• If certain ta ethne in our Jerusalem, Judea,
  Samaria or the uttermost are our enemies,
  whether considered so by us or by them, or by
  both, are we engaging them with a view to
  bringing them to Christ?
• Or, are there ethne on our list like Nineveh
  was to Jonah whom we consider as deserving only
  to die lost and condemned by God and man, and
  not deserving the chance to hear and live?
• Can we give a positive count (numerical) and
  therefore an account (spiritual) of the ethnics
  around us?

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The Main Question To Ask!

• Are we sleeping like Israel slept in times when
  God asked Israel to move beyond an almost single
  focus on their own kind of God-chosen people,
  in order to engage and evangelize the ta ethne
  among them? Or, are we taking note of every
  ethnic group who moves among us, and are we
  taking steps to evangelize them?

20
The Main Consequence To Consider!

• Israel in her life as a chosen people from the
  time of Israels entry into the Promised Land
  to the coming of Christ was often warned by
  prophets sent by God concerning their mission on
  earth as a people. Time and time again the
  prophets warned Israel that if she did not repent
  and come back from her backslidden life, then He
  would judge them by sending them into captivity.
  Most often they did not repent, and time and time
  again God sent them into physical and national
  captivity. He could do the same to people and
  nations today if they ignore the ta ethne.

21
A Historical Look at the Status, Engagement and
Implications of Immigrants (the Ta Ethne) in the
United States from 1775 to 2006

• A Version Designed for the NAMB Leadership Summit
  and Significantly Updated for SBC State
  ConventionStaffs for Directors of Mission
  Others

22
The Three Periods that Established American as a
Nation that Resulted in Future-Altering Changes
in the USA in our Time

• The first of the three periods occurred between
  1775 and 1924. We will extend the 1924
  immigration date to the 1940s in order to present
  a combined secular and religious picture of that
  formative period.
• The second period of change occurred between
  1945 and 1965 which can be called the Golden Age
  of Christianity in the USA.
• The third period of change occurred between 1965
  and 2006 A.D. This section summarizes trends
  observed to give evidence of drastic changes and
  deviations from the past. Many Christians are
  unaware of the changes and the implications of
  all the changes since 1965.

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Section 2 A Look At Immigration in the USA from
1775 to 1940s
24
Documentation of This Look At Immigration from
1775 to 1940s

• Every concept and all the data included is well
  documented. Almost every entry is backed by more
  than one source. Will Herberg, a major historian
  of immigration prior to and during the 1950s
  1960s is a major source. Herberg worked through
  and cited over 339 major sources in his classic
  work. This author has followed up on every one
  of those sources.
• Oscar Handlin was quoted often by Herberg.
  Handlin also was a major, Pulitzer Prize winning,
  researcher of immigration and the formation of
  the United States of America. Handlin cited
  hundreds of other social, religious and
  statistical researchers of his era. This author,
  like Handlin did with Herbergs writing, followed
  up on most of Handlins sources. Both authors
  works are seen as classics and are highly quoted
  and respected even today. Handlins Pulitzer
  Price was for his The Uprooted. Multiple other
  religious sources beyond these two authors were
  consulted in developing the religious comments
  and interpretations in this presentation.

25
Documentation of This Look At Immigration from
1775 to 1940s

• The compiler of this document on immigration to
  the USA searched current sources for any who
  disputed Herbergs and Handlins findings.
  Herberg and Handlin published in the 1950s
  1960s.
• That body of research when joined with research
  from the mid-1960s and after provides great
  clarity and vital understanding of our religious
  social situation today.
• Those responsible for engaging and evangelizing
  the lost in this generation should pay attention
  to the lessons from the past.

26
Exploring The Ta Ethne Migration from 1775 to the
1940s

• An old proverb says those who do not consider
  and pay attention to history are doomed to repeat
  it.
• Again, a look at Israel in the Old Testament
  era tells us that when Israel ignored God and
  Gods work in history, God instigated their
  downfall. (See Ezekiel 1-4)

27
Will Herbergs Oscar Handlins 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) (Handlins
  Pulitzer Prize work.)
• This is the most significant and critical
  reality for America and American Christians to
  understand, then and now. We will explore the
  then first, followed by a look at the now in
  parts 2 and 3 of this document.
• America is a nation of immigrants.

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A Look At 1775 to 1950America, A Nation of
Panta ta ethne Immigrants

• America was founded, grew and flourished in
  terms of immigrant ethnic peoples, immigrant
  religious adherents and the churches they planted
  in the emerging nation. 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. Handlin and
  Herberg said often Almost all came from
  Christian background roots.

29
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) African Americans in U.S.
  in 1775.
• The great influx of ethnics came in the next
  century.

30
A Look At 1775 to 1950America, A Nation of
Panta ta ethne Immigrants

• In the early 1960s Herberg, Handlin and Hansen
  said separately in their publications 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.
  This 35 million extended the 3 million base of
  1775.
• In 2003, a book about the new Americans said At
  the time colonial America declared its
  independence from British rule in 1776
• Nearly 80 of people in the colonies were white
  Europeans from England, Ireland, Scotland,
  Germany, the Netherlands, France, and Sweden.
• Just over 20 were slaves from Africa (The
  Newest Americans. Editor Susan Madoff of Creative
  Media Applications, Greenwood Press, 2003. p.8)
• Over the next 200 years, more than 70 million
  people from around the world would immigrate to
  the United States. (The Newest Americans, p. 8)
• In this introduction, it should be clear that as
  American history passed, immigration continued to
  be the most defining trait of the United States.

31
A Look At 1775 to 1950America, A Nation of
Panta ta ethne Immigrants

• By the time 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).
  However, even by 1950, there were only a small
  percentage of the US population who did not come
  from Christian background settings. (Herberg,
  Handlin Hansen). Obviously, the late coming
  Catholics figured into the mix, especially in the
  1900s.

32
A Look At 1775 to 1950America, A Nation of
Panta ta ethne Immigrants

• The melding force 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 land.
• It is important to note that the flow of most of
  the immigrants to the frontier meant minimal
  settling by them in their own ethnic enclaves.
  The frontier caused their coming and their
  melding, their assimilation.

33
A Look At 1775 to 1950America, A Nation of
Panta ta ethne Immigrants

• This flow of a majority of the immigrants who
  came in waves seeking frontier jobs, played the
  major role in shaping America linguistically and
  culturally. Again, the frontier was the
  assimilating factor and force.
• Their basic desire was to live in their own
  ethnic enclaves and not assimilate. The frontier
  blocked them.
• As successive waves of immigrants came to the US
  over 100 years, the push of each wave
  contributed to the rising of first generation
  immigrants from menial frontier jobs to climb to
  middle class manager/ business status on and just
  behind the frontiers leading edge. Second
  generation ethnics replaced the first generation
  as the manual laborers. The shaping and melding
  of America was in gear. It worked.

34
A Look At 1775 to 1950America, A Nation of
Panta ta ethne Immigrants

• Foundationally, it is very important to
  understand that it was
• the freedom in America,
• the emerging democracy in America,
• the vast Western frontier of the Continent,
• the letters from friends and family telling them
  to come and join them on the vast frontier,
• the Western push of the people to experience
  freedom, own land, and prayerfully have a much
  brighter future,
• The poverty, the hopelessness, and the peasant
  status of the immigrants in Europe
• That lured them to America and its vast Frontier
  that caused them to assimilate and meld to a
  degree.

35
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)

36
The Shaping of A New Nation

• It is very important to notice in this history
  that
• The lure and fact of the frontier that brought
  the immigrants by the millions caused the
  assimilation, the melding, of the immigrants.
  Non-assimilation was not a choice and would not
  have been their choice by many ethnic groups.
• Historically, the immigrants would liked to have
  settled in among their own kind of people and
  produced ethnic enclaves within the USA
• The mass of immigrants and the fact of the
  frontier minimized the peoples choice and forced
  assimilation over a 150-year period of time

37
A Look At 1775 to 1950America, A Nation of
Panta ta ethne Immigrants

• In this shaping process, the second generation of
  immigrants assumed the jobs of the vacated first
  generation immigrants who moved up the 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 and the
  appearance of educational opportunities on the
  frontier increased its occurrence and the varied
  status in US. Though the US frontier was not
  near 50 literate, schools tended to follow the
  frontier westward.
• The push of the frontier and education in English
  language in schools minimized wholesale
  settlement of immigrants within ethnic enclaves,
  except where enclaves developed in a few cities.

38
A Look At 1775 to 1950America, A Nation of
Panta ta ethne Immigrants

• Thus, the Americanization process did produce
  in the somewhat melded population a fairly common
  English language among the ethnics.
• In order to move up the ladder socially and
  economically, each wave of immigrant ethnics had
  to push their ethnic language into the home and
  family, while publically adopting English as the
  language of the workplace and society. Many
  ethnic languages did persist in the family for
  100 years. Traces of them exist today. For
  instance, it was the late 1970s before Swedish
  Baptists in the US renamed themselves Baptist
  General Conference.

39
A Look At 1775 to 1950America, A Nation of
Panta ta ethne Immigrants

• In many of the families of the various ethnic
  groups in each successive wave, the older first
  generation families found it difficult to give up
  their homeland language for English.
• However, pronounced (pun intended) regional, and
  some sub-regional, dialectical accents, worldview
  expressions and word choices remain even today
  within US regions. This does not mean that
  everybody learned English immediately or at all.
• Again, some immigrants did settle in cities and
  were often able to duplicate their ethnic status
  there.

40
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. Illustrations abound
  and persist even today concerning this fact.
• A major, a key, fact of the immigrants and the
  frontier was that language melding did not erase
  their religious identity from the old country.
  Of all their ethnic qualities, their religious
  identity came over from the old country, and came
  to the fore. As public ethnic language use was
  stripped from them, they tended to hold on to and
  underline their religious heritage. For many,
  their original ethnic language persisted. Many
  Catholic parishes were established along ethnic
  language lines. This was not as common among
  Protestants.

41
A Look At 1775 to 1950America, A Nation of
Panta ta ethne Immigrants

• Most of the regional dialectical and worldview
  differences in the US can be traced to ethnic
  heritages that persisted. Consider the Cajuns in
  Louisiana. Also, consider the German dairy
  communities that existed throughout the nation.
  For other examples see the DVD package entitled
  The Appalachians (A PBS video), and the Gente de
  Razon, a San Antonio, Texas Catholic Missions
  video on the five missions. This second video was
  produced by the US Parks and Historical Society.

42
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.
  Irish Catholics and other ethnic groups persist
  to this day. Enclaves of them exist in many
  urban settings.
• At the same time, due to the frontier and the
  economic push over a 150-year period, these
  multiple ethnic groups were melded mainly into an
  Anglo Saxon or Anglo-Saxon-oriented culture, at
  least in terms of language. It is out of this
  process that the WASP title aroseWhite Anglo
  Saxon Protestant. Do remember that the majority
  of the melded Americans by the end of the first
  wave of migration (1924) were Protestants.

43
A Look At 1775 to 1950American Indians and
Africans in America

• American Indians, or more appropriately called
  Native Americans, who were 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. Included in this would be the Spanish
  migrations into Latin America which migrated into
  the Southwest and Western parts of America.

44
The American Indian from 1600 to 1900

• The first, and earliest, change was the
  overrunning of the American Indians by the
  European immigrants. This wave pushed them
  farther inland.
• Of an estimated 300 plus original languages
  spoken by American Indians, 175 living languages
  remain (National Museum of the American Indian,
  the Smithsonian Institute)
• Optimum estimates of the pre-Columbian Native
  American population was 15,000,000 to 18,000,000
  (Linguistic Anthropologist R. David Edmonds of UT
  Dallas)

45
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 data was
  based upon a projected sample. The issue here is
  the decline from 15,000,000 to 306,543.
• Few American Indians were evangelized from 1600
  to 1900. This does not minimize the great work
  of Brainard and others.

46
African Americans from 1600 to 1900

• In 1619 the first known or recorded African
  Americans arrived in English colonial America
• It is historically important to note that the
  African slaves brought mainly from West Africa,
  had in West Africa lived in complex, organized,
  structured market economies in which they
  participated as producers, traders, brokers,
  merchants, and entrepreneurs. (p. 19 African
  Americans by Juliet E.K. Walber in A Nation of
  Peoples by Greenwood Press.

47
African Imports from 1620-1870

• 1620-1700 20,500
• 1701-1760 188,600 (18,000 to French La.)
• 1761-1800 212,361 (None of these to La.)
• 1800-1870 175,290 (10,200 of these to La.)
• (p. 20, Table 1 of A Nation of Peoples compiled
  from Philip D. Curtins The Atlantic Slave Trade
  A Census, Madison Univ. 1969)
• Just prior to the Civil War, out of the 8
  million whites in the fifteen slave states, only
  385,000 owned slaves. (p. 24, Ibid.)
• During this period, a majority were evangelized.

48
The Great Migration In The USA

• The period from 1910 to 1920 is known as the
  Great Migration in African American history. The
  era marked the beginning of the black urban
  ghetto, but it was not until 1940 that more than
  50 percent of blacks lived in places of more than
  2,500 people. (p. 30, Ibid)
• In 1910 there were 10 million blacks, with 90
  percent living in the South and 80 percent living
  in rural areas. Between 1917 and 1920, an
  estimated 700,000 to 1 million blacks left the
  South, followed by another 800,000 to 1 million
  during the 1920s. In addition there was also the
  immigrations of blacks from the West Indiesmost
  of whom settled in New York or Florida. (p. 30,
  Ibid)

49
The Migration of African Americans within the US

• Nevertheless, more southern blacks migrated to
  southern cities between 1900 and 1920 than to
  northern cities. In some southern cities they
  soon comprised from 25 to 50 percent of the total
  population, whereas in northern cities they never
  exceeded 10 percent. (p. 31, Ibid)
• In the last half of the 20th Century some African
  Americans melded into traditional Anglo society,
  while others continued to live within African
  American groupings.
• Increasingly from 1700 to the present, a distinct
  African American culture has developed in the
  USA, just as a distinct Hispanic American culture
  has been developing and escalating in the USA
  from the mid-1900s to the present.
• African Americans to the present tend to be
  religious and tend to maintain a Protestant
  identity with the majority being affiliated with
  Methodist and Baptist churches.

50
A Look At African Americans by 1980

• There were an estimated 25 million
  Afro-Americans in the U.S. in the mid-1970s, a
  figure making them not only the largest ethnic
  group in America, but second only to
  Afro-Brazilians in the Western Hemisphere. (p.
  5 of Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic
  Groups, Stephen Thernstrom, Editor)
• Voluntary migration has brought a good many
  others since the 1800s. (p. 5, Ibid)
• Not since 1880 have Afro-Americans comprised
  more than 12 percent of the nation (Ibid)

51
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.)
• Note Roman Catholic numbers and percentages came
  in the later years.

52
In Retrospect

• Between 1492 and 1965, 82 percent of all the
  peoples on this planet who came to American
  shores came from Europe. (Professor Stephen L.
  Klineberg. Department of Sociology, Rice
  University, Houston, Texas (2005)
• Under the notorious 1924 National Origins Quota
  Act, immigration was dramatically reduced, and
  the newcomers were restricted almost exclusively
  to northern Europeans (Klineberg of Rice
  University)
• In 1965, the Hart-Celler Act removed the
  earlier restrictions, and established preferences
  based primarily on family reunification and
  professional skills, and later on refugee
  status. (Klineberg)

53
In Retrospect

• In the years following 1900, for the first time,
  immigrants began coming from southern and eastern
  Europe. Of all the immigrants coming during that
  post-1900 era, those from southern and eastern
  Europe were in the majority. Many of these
  immigrants were Jewish and Catholic, in contrast
  to the predominantly Protestant groups that
  settled in the United States prior to 1900.

54
Section 3 The Religious Situation In The USA
from 1775 to 1950
55
The Religious Change from 1775 to 1950 A
Religious Perspective of History

• This section looks at the status of
  Christianity in 1775 and the charted changes
  within the population in light of what happened
  within Christianity until 1950.

56
This Period of Change from 1775 to 1950 A
Religious Perspective

• It is clear in early immigrant documents that the
  main migratory people were Protestant and that
  they migrated to the New World primarily for
  religious reasons and in search of religious
  freedom.
• The percent of Christians, counted from the
  perspective of recognized church members in the
  colonies in 1775 was about 12 and a large
  majority of those were Protestants. Most people
  in the colonies beyond the 12 would say they
  were Christians.

57
The Period of Change from 1775 to 1950 A
Religious Perspective

• American religious denominations, beginning in
  1775 and continuing until 1950, also underwent
  classic changes which were only minimally caused
  and marked by theology.
• In the American religious landscape Protestantism
  dominated from the 1700s to the 1900s.

58
The Period of Change from 1775 to 1950 A
Religious Perspective

• Even though the percent of recognized church
  members in 1775 in the colonies was about 12, a
  majority of the people in the colonies, when
  asked, would indicate that they came from a
  Christian, protestant-oriented heritage.
• The Bill of Rights, heavily influenced into
  existence by Baptists, mainly in Virginia,
  events related to the Western frontier, resulted
  in a marked change in religion in America.

59
A Look At 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)
• Note Catholics are not included in this
  comparison for they were a minority until the
  1900s.

60
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.)

61
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 and
  book of the principles and practices of church
  planting for documentation sources.)

62
Discerning The Lay of the Land

• In fact, the order of the six leading
  denominations in 1775 were exactly reversed by
  1950.
• By 1850 Methodists were the largest Protestant
  denomination in the USA and Baptists were second.
• By 1950 Baptists were the largest of the
  original groups and Methodists were second. A
  count of Southern Baptists alone in 1950 would
  have shown them close to being largest Protestant
  denomination.

63
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
  6 largest Protestant denominations in 1775 with
  the 6 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 reversal?

64
Why Did These Groups Grow Why Did the Order End
Up Reversed?

• Congregationalists whose congregational polity
  was thought to be best fitted for the frontier
  went though an Old Lights and New Lights
  theological controversy followed by a geographic
  comity agreement with Presbyterians concerning
  frontier locations. Most of the time of both was
  consumed by the controversy and neither of them
  recovered from those choices.
• Yet, it had been the Congregationalists, named
  so in the USA, who brought the initial and major
  political and religious group to the New Land
  with a clearly stated religious manifesto. And,
  even as late as 1900, Congregationalists had
  1,000 missionaries on foreign fields, only to see
  them dwindle during the 1900s to a very few.

65
Why Did These Groups Grow Why Did the Order End
Up Reversed?

• Anglican churches were identified with the
  English colonizers and with the causes of the
  Revolution. Anglicans never overcame that war
  and colonial image. So, over time, their name
  changed to The Episcopal Church to attempt to
  shed that war image.
• Also, few realize that many of the Puritans and
  those today known as Low Church Anglicans had
  gone with Wesley, forming the foundations of the
  Methodist church in both England and in the
  Colonies/USA. That departure actually took some
  of the most conservative and evangelistic
  Anglicans into Methodism in the USA. This hurt
  the Anglicans.

66
Why Did These Groups Grow Why Did the Order End
Up Reversed?

• Presbyterians suffered from the comity
  agreement between themselves and the
  Congregationalists. Like the Episcopal churches,
  even after their name change, their Presbyterian
  institutional polity, their preference for land
  and building, and their requirements for a
  theologically trained, denominationally chosen
  and installed pastor, kept them behind the edges
  of the frontier.
• The institutional and non-lay led denominations
  lagged an average of 200 miles behind the
  frontier where more settled communities were like
  they were used to existed. And, only communities
  some 200 miles behind the frontier were large
  enough in population and affluent enough to
  afford the more formal pastors and their
  churches. It took established towns to support
  those more formal and institutional
  denominations.

67
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, even to the Mississippi river and
  they did grow. However, it was persecution and
  lack of a colony base in New England that pushed
  Lutherans to the Missouri territory and northward
  into Canada where they settled grew some
  distance from persecution. They were the only
  formal and highly structured and institutional
  denomination found on the advanced edges of the
  frontier.

68
Why Did Groups Grow on the Western Frontier?

• Roman Catholics attention to and attitude
  toward evangelization on the Western frontier can
  be seen in following ad in 1800s
• We offer you No salary. No recompense, no
  holidays, no pensions. But hard work and a poor
  dwelling, few consolations, many disappointments,
  frequent sickness, a violent, lonely death, an
  unknown grave. (Source Exhibit at South Dakota
  Cultural Center, Pierre, SD provided by John
  Guillatt of South Dakota Baptist Convention.)

69
How did Methodists become First in 1850 and
Remain Second by 1950?

• Methodists had a strategy, a carefully defined
  and carefully managed geographic circuit-rider
  plan that fitted them for the frontier. Their
  plan was the method found in the word
  Methodist. That plan, designed by Wesley for
  England, which was only partially accepted there,
  was a perfect fit for the US frontier, at least
  until about 1900.

70
How did Methodists become First in 1850 and
Remain Second in 1950?

• A Quote 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)

71
How did Methodists become First in 1850 and
Remain Second in 1950?

• A Quote 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)

72
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
  fully exist,
• 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)

73
How did Methodists become First in 1850 and
Remain Second by 1950?

• A Quote 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)

74
How did Baptists become Second in 1850 and Grow
to First by 1950?

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

75
Growth Characteristics of Baptists

• Each local church was autonomous
• Churches were congregational in polity
• Lay, often uneducated, Baptist church members
  going west were encouraged to plant a church at
  sites where they settled if no Baptist church
  existed there
• Churches that did emerge met in homes, saloons,
  hardware stores, barns, stables, school rooms,
  under trees, etc.

76
Growth Characteristics of Baptists

• Local churches found their pastor within the
  maturing believers in their emerging new church
  body
• Local churches recognized and ordained their own
  pastors
• Often the settler who started a new church ended
  up being called by the emerging new church to
  be their pastor. Many laymen became pastors that
  way.
• Laymen who did become pastors tended to
  itinerate, pastoring 2-4 churches

77
Growth Characteristics of Baptists

• As churches were planted, laymen within those
  churches with a burden for the lost tended to
  emerge who preached in the outlying areas
  wherever a group of people lived
• Consequently, lay evangelists were common in
  Baptist churches and this trend persisted well
  into the early to mid-1900s
• As frontier towns settled in and grew, a few
  churches sought pastors from more settled
  frontier towns to the east

78
Growth Characteristics of Baptists

• By the mid to late 1800s, requests for training
  arose among frontier pastors who settled in for a
  longer tenure in the more settled, behind the
  frontiers leading edge, towns
• As pastors saw their churches increase in
  membership size and stability, and as they faced
  more complex pastoral duties, they called for
  training assistance
• This led to Baptist schools being started from
  the Atlantic to the Mississippi River. This is
  why and how the many Baptist colleges and SBC
  seminaries started. These were on-demand
  schools. Local churches started them and paid
  for them. Subsidy was an unknown habit on the
  frontier for over 100 hundred years. Subsidy was
  less among Baptists than among Methodists and
  Methodist subsidy, as seen earlier, was very
  meager when it was provided.

79
The Most Common Growth Reasons

• Sweet, Herberg, Latourette, Braun and multiple
  other social and religious historians said that
  the three 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 2) lay preachers and
  pastors, most of whom were bi-vocational and 3)
  a congregational polity that allowed local
  churches to start and function autonomously
  without approval from a leadership hierarchy.

80
The Lay of the Land Discerned

• Over time, for sure by the early 1900s, as new
  church starts and membership growth continued to
  occur, as religious status became the leading
  characteristic of an American, the Bible Belt had
  formed across the southern USA. 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.
  (Comments cited from Herberg, Handlin and others)
  Even then, the typical American by the 1900s
  favored and spoke of America as a moral Christian
  society.

81
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. Their churches went to
  the frontier with them. Those churches that fit
  the frontier and that were comfortable on the
  frontier won the frontier.

82
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--Anglos
• 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 receed
  somewhat to the background. English had become a
  practical acquisition of most ethnics, but their
  religion persisted to become the ethnics major
  identity.

83
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 one
  of three acceptable identifying religious
  markersProtestant, Catholic or Jew. (Herberg)
• So, by the 1950s in the USA the identification
  of an American was according to one of these
  three categoriesProtestant, Catholic or Jew. To
  not be one of these three categories was not to
  be an American.

84
Section 4A Look At Culture and Religion in the
USA1945 to 1960The Golden Age of Christianity
in USA

• Again, the three primary researchers and authors
  of this era concerning American immigration were
  Herberg, Handlin Hansen.
• Their works are seen as classic writings today.
• They cited this period as the span of years when
  Christianity was at its highest peak from 1775 to
  1950.

85
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.

86
The USA Religious Scene in 1950

• In 1775 church members were from 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)
• Beyond the category of church members at least
  75-80 of all Americans said they were adherents
  of Christianity
• By the 1950s denominationalism had developed, was
  clearly established, active and very strong in
  term of loyalties and influence in America
• Evidences of denominational solidarity follow

87
The USA Religious Scene in 1950 A Consideration
of Conversions

• Conversions from one community (denomination
  or category) 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. 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.

88
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,
  and about 1,000,000 had made changes of some
  other kind. See also John A. OBrien, You Too
  Can Win Souls (Macmillan, 1955). (Cited in
  Herbergs footnotes on pages 170-171.)

89
Religion in America from 1945-1960

• Even beneath the surface of the American melting
  pot one could still see the persistence of
  ethnic identities when studying marriage and
  church affiliations.
• On the surface citizens in the USA were
  Americans, known as Anglo-Saxons, but beneath the
  surface their ethne had not been totally erased.
  Notice the following data.

90
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)

91
A Study of Marriage Patterns from 1870 to 1940

• Kennedy found Irish in-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)

92
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.)

93
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. (pp.
  32-33, Herberg)

94
A Study of Marriage Patterns from 1870 to 1940

• The traditional single melting pot idea must
  now 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)

95
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 characteristics were
  primarily determined by their identify with one
  of the three religions that was most appropriate
  for ethnic background and geographic location in
  the USA.
• (See Will Herbergs Protestant-Catholic-Jew.)
• At the beginning of this era Franklin
  Roosevelt regularly and publically expressed his
  religious beliefs and prayers.

96
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
  would seldom ever be elected to a significant
  political office.
• This was especially true in the Bible Belt of
  the USA. And, except in pervasively Catholic
  areas, it was difficult for a Roman Catholic to
  be elected to a national office.
• Religious credentials were important for
  business leaders, salesmen and community leaders.
  

97
The Consequences of this Religious Environment

• Pastors, Rabbis and Priests were at the top of
  the list of the most respected persons in
  American life.
• Those 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
  early 1970s.
• Prayers were said in the schools, prior to the
  beginning of any sports events, Ten Commandments
  posted in public pl