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

• 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
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.

3
Section 1 Biblical Backgroundfor Evangelizers
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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 bless 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).

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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.

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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.)

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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.

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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?

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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

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Section 2 A Look At Immigration in the USA from
1775 to 1940s
11
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.

13
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.

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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.

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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.
• 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 and in process.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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 publicaly 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.

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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 of 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.

21
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.

22
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.

23
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.

24
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.

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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.

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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.)

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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.)

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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.

29
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?

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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.

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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)

32
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)

33
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)

34
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)

35
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.

36
Growth Characteristics of Baptists

• Each local church was autonomous
• Churches were congregational in polity
• Lay, rarely educated, 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.

37
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

38
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

39
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.

40
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, almost every one 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.

41
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.

42
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.

43
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

44
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.)

45
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.

46
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.
  

47
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 places, and prayers to God for
  blessings habitually offered by politicians.
• 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.
  Also, until Reagan, no divorcee had ever been
  elected as President of the USA.

48
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 with Presbyterians following some distance
  behind them.
• 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 say in
  political matters, a vote and a better lifestyle
  which spelled freedom.

49
The Consequences of this Religious Environment

• Southern Baptist evangelism and church planting
  methods, or approaches, tended to develop in the
  midst of this highly religious identification and
  historical period. It was upon this base of
  Judeo-Christian values that the post-World War II
  years, especially the1950s, rested. Those
  Judeo-Christian values were assumed to exist by
  an overwhelming majority of the 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 for multiple
  quotes documenting this.)

50
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
  and established themselves and their Christian
  groups upon these assumptions and aspirations of
  typical Americans in the USA during this era.
  This was the situation just prior to the next
  stage of immigration and history in the USA.

51
The Lay of the Land Discerned

• A study of Christian materials, and especially
  witnessing presentations, in the period between
  1945 and 1965 reveals the assumption that an
  American had enough background knowledge and
  beliefs about God and Christianity such that
  those basics would not have to be covered during
  witnessing sessions. It was also assumed that an
  American accepted the Bible as authoritative and
  that it was to be respected.

52
Looking Back on this Period from 1945 to 1960

• We now look back on the period from 1945 to
  1960 as the 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 denominations, agencies
  and institutions within this period speaks for
  itself. Southern Baptists grew by 100 in this
  period. (Herberg)

53
Looking Back on SBC Growth from 1950 to 1960

• Southern Baptist Convention Stats in 1960 (The
  Largest Protestant Denomination)
• 32,281 churches
• 9,731,591 members (302 Avg. Mbs. Church)
• 386,409 baptisms for year (11.9 A. Bap. Ch.)
• 7,382,550 Sunday School (75.8 of mbs.)
• 480,608,972 Total of Receipts in Churches

54
A Troubling Reality of the Most Homogeneous and
Religious Era

• Herbergs Quote 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 nations can
  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)

55
Major Missiological Issues to Notice

• Programs, methods, approaches, whatever one wants
  to call them, became more and more generic. They
  were copied and used successfully in many
  different regions and locations in the US. 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 to a great degree then, especially in the
  Bible Belt, one size did work quite well in many
  places among many people, because of homogeneous
  values that existed in America at that time

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Major Missiological Issues to Notice

• In those cases in the 1950s 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 with
  strong Judeo-Christian values.
• In the 1950s, when Baptists went out of the
  Protestant Bible Belt and into Catholic
  territories they met the we dont swap
  religions ethnic identity that was
  characteristic of America and Americans of that
  era.
• Protestants and Baptists grew better among
  unchurched relatives than among Catholics
  Jews.

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Major Missiological Issues to Notice

• Those transplanted churches beyond the Bible Belt
  with mostly southern members were soon sealed off
  from the locals. For, when the few locals who
  did come to see what church was all about, they
  saw foreign 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 a significant
  number did not hold the southern worldview
  values. Fifty years later, most of those
  churches are as they were then, or smaller.

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The Period of American History 1960-Present

• saw Post-Modernism come from Europe to Canada and
  into the USA
• began experiencing a type of ethnic immigration
  that, with the possible exception of the ethnics
  coming from Latin America, is coming from very
  different linguistic, worldview and world
  religion sources such that
• Generic is no longer a characteristic in USA,
  even among Anglos.
• Pluralism exists within ethnes and even in
  denominations and churches in this era.

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The Period of American History 1960-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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A Summary of Immigration into US from 1820 to
2000 A.D.

• From 1820 through 1924 35,999,402
• From 1925 through 1960 5,841,559
• From 1961 through 2000 24,248,470
• From 1820 through 2003 69,869,450
• In 2000 A.D. the projection prior to the Census
  was 26,800,000 foreign-born persons in the US in
  July of 2000
• Actual foreign-born enumerated in 2000 Census was
  31,100,000 persons

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Consequences of Immigrants in USfrom 1960 to the
Present

• English will functionally face other competitors,
  especially in local ethnic communities where
  other languages dominate
• The issue of worldview will loom larger and
  larger in more and more settings in the USA
• Local ethnic Radio and TV stations and programs
  will likely proliferate within the USA
• Marketing will become more pluralistic in
  catering to multiple ethnic groups in order to
  engage and sell to the increasing pluralistic
  market setting in USA
• Niche marketing already exists in USA

63
Consequences of Immigrants in USfrom 1960 to the
Present

• Foreign marketers will increase to join and
  compete with already present and powerful foreign
  businesses such as Toyota, Samsung, British
  Petroleum, Shell, and many others.
• Language use in the USA will become more varied
  and will increase within specific languages
  yearly, if not more often.
• Evangelicals focus evangelistically mainly on
  Anglos with only a minor focus on ethnics.

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Consequences of Immigrants in USfrom 1960 to the
Present

• However, at present, evangelical methods of
  engagement and evangelization are mostly replicas
  and renditions of methods used in the 1950s when
  religion was commonly in vogue, based upon
  Biblical values, and given attention and a
  hearing by most citizens.
• Today, none of those assumptions exist in a
  pluralistic America.
• The definition of an American becomes more
  difficult and pluralistic every day.

65
Illegal Immigrants into the USA

• In addition to the nearly 1 million legal
  immigrants who arrive in the United States each
  year, hundreds of thousands of people enter the
  country without permissionThe Immigrant and
  Naturalization Service (INS) estimates the number
  at close to 300,000 a year. (The Newest
  Americans, p. 13.)

66
The Most Sobering Reality

• The setting in America today better fits the
  Great Commissions panta ta ethne mandate of
  Christ than any other era in American history.
  It seems that God has brought the uttermost to
  our individual Jerusalems.
• Never in the history of America has ethnic,
  heart language, worldview sensitive been so
  appropriate and required than today.

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• Concluding Slide of A Look At The Historical
  Periods of Immigration into the USA from
  1775-2006

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• Prepared by Dr. James Slack
• Ethnographer, Missiologist, Growth Analyst and
  Field Assessments Consultant of SBCs IMB
• Global Research Department of OOO
• January 16, 2006 Edition Previous Edition
• This Edition 22 October 2007

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