The Varieties of American Evangelicalism

Donald Trump’s ascent to the presidency has brought the culture, fault-lines and political commitments of American evangelicalism into sharp relief. How did a candidate whose lifestyle and morals starkly contradict conservative Christian teaching win the votes of more than 80 percent of white evangelicals? And as Trump and his administration has been plagued by accusations of corruption, lies and extra-marital affairs, why have white evangelicals and some evangelicals of color continued to support him?

The USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture produced this report ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, and was last updated before the 2024 elections.

The emergence of white American evangelicalism in the early 20th century—then calling itself Fundamentalism — was from its outset, a reform movement seeking to rally Christian forces against the increasingly progressive and permissive American culture, restoring its Christian roots. Their efforts were initially political, supporting efforts such as bans on alcohol and legislation against the teaching of evolution in schools. Some leaders also supported white Christian Nationalist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.

After their public embarrassment during the “Scopes Monkey Trial” in 1925, evangelicals effectively retreated from the public sphere. They focused on individual morals and salvation as the engine of social change. Their efforts required the building of institutions such as independent churches, K-12 schools, universities and media organizations including publishers and electronic media. These institutions ultimately became the foundation of the Religious Right in the 1970s and 1980s.

The targeted campaigns of  1980s era Religious Right evangelicals were largely identified with right-wing politics. Conservative religious values, including opposition to gay rights, reproductive choice and feminism — as well as support for prayer in public schools, tuition vouchers, traditional families and the ability to discriminate in their organizations based on their religious beliefs — entered the political sphere through movements such as Moral Majority, Christian Voice, the Eagle Forum and Focus on the Family.

Since 1980, evangelical leaders have influenced national elections and public policy, and have helped push the Republican Party toward increasingly conservative social stands. In fact, white evangelicals have generally been the most consistent voting bloc within the Republican Party.

But, evangelical Christianity, as we have known it since the 1970s, is again changing. Who are American evangelicals? What do they believe?  What is their vision for the country and its place in the world?

In the aftermath of Trump’s 2016 sweep of white evangelicals, many evangelical leaders such as Jerry Falwell Jr. and Robert Jeffress basked in the glow of victory, claiming they were bringing America back to God. Others — such as Russell Moore, head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy arm, and Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City — tried to create distance between evangelicalism and its seemingly overwhelming support for the new president. For leaders like Moore and Keller, Trump is the anathema of what they say evangelicalism represents, and many of the “evangelicals” who voted for him are not “real” evangelicals. Likewise, evangelical scholars have sought to debunk the notion that evangelicals’ 81 percent vote for Trump reflects the community of evangelical believers.

This raises an important question: Are evangelicals as monolithic a group as election exit polls suggest, or are there significant differences among them?

At its most basic, evangelicalism is characterized by a belief in the literal truth of the Bible, having a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ,” the importance of encouraging others to be “born again” in Jesus and lively worship in church. This characterization is true regardless of a church’s size, the demographic profile of its members or how those congregants live out their beliefs. Yet, discrete groups can be found within evangelicalism that, while sharing the same basic theology, differ significantly in how they understand politics and social engagement.

Survey research and election polls also fail to differentiate between whites, Latinos, African-Americans and Asians who share the same evangelical theology, but part company over social and moral issues. For example, in most surveys and political polls, the term “evangelical” is limited to white believers, while others who may be theologically similar are classified into racial/ethnically identified categories such as “Black Protestant,” “Latino Protestant” or “Other nonwhite Protestant.” This taxonomy masks the racial and ethnic diversity within evangelicalism, and also obscures the ways that different racial or ethnic groups within evangelicalism interpret their faith and seek to live it out in the world. At the same time, there are many non-white Christians and Christian organizations that share the same religious beliefs as “evangelicals,” but do not identify themselves as such because of the political history and racial connotations attached to the evangelical name.

In this brief report, we provide a concise guide to five different expressions of evangelical Christianity. None of these groupings is composed entirely of white evangelicals; rather, each includes a mix of racial and ethnic groups. Members of each category ascribe to evangelical theology, but they disagree — sometimes vociferously — on various social-moral and political issues.

For our purposes, these groupings — or “types” — of evangelicalism are derived using three criteria: First, each type shares a basic agreement on evangelical theology. Second, they each understand themselves as existing within the larger tradition of American evangelicalism, whether or not they refer to themselves, their churches and other organizations as “evangelical.” And third, their theology motivates how they act in the world, including appropriate social and political actions, and attitudes toward people who do not share their religious commitments.

The lines between the types or varieties of evangelicalism are often bright but are also sometimes blurred by “border-crossers” whose varied commitments, both theological and political, place them in more than one category. For example, Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission — whom we’ve categorized as a “neo-fundamentalist” — would agree with some peace and justice evangelical positions on immigration, but not on abortion or LGBTQ rights. This highlights the fact that typologies can simplify in order to explain, but also blur some of the finer distinctions.

Our five varieties of evangelicalism are as follows:

MAGA-vangelicals are the most vocal — or at least the most visible group of evangelicals right now. They are the continuation of the efforts of the Religious Right to bring political power to bear to further the aims of white evangelicalism, particularly around abortion, religious freedom and restrictions on the rights of other groups with which they disagree. Many Trump-vangelical leaders have directly addressed the apparent disconnect between their avowed moral stance and their alignment with Donald Trump through a biblical rationalization that invokes an ungodly Old Testament king who nevertheless achieved God’s goals on earth.

Neo-fundamentalist evangelicals are no less theologically or politically conservative than Trump-vangelicals, but they maintain a purist approach toward whom they will cooperate with in achieving their aims. Thus, while they appear to take the moral high road in calling out other evangelicals for their alignments with Donald Trump, they happily reap the benefits when his administration furthers the aims of evangelical Christianity, such as the appointment of anti-abortion judges and restrictions on LGBTQ rights.

iVangelicals are primarily concentrated in the evangelical megachurch movement and focus on reaching large numbers of people through their popular worship services, varied social programs and small group ministries. iVangelicals are particularly adept at appropriating key elements of the larger culture to provide a “relevant” church atmosphere, and remain steadfastly non-controversial in their politics and social engagement.

Kingdom Christians focus on building the Kingdom of God on earth by creating diverse relationships in the local community and shaping human development policy through engagement with local officials, regardless of those officials’ political or religious affiliation. In other words, Kingdom Christians, neither liberal nor conservative, embrace  an inclusive form of Kingdom Theology that is marked by a keenly localized concern for human flourishing and the systemic sources of suffering. This distinguishes Kingdom Christians from “reconstructionist” or “dominionist” believers, who also use Kingdom language but pursue political power at the national level and seek to exclude religious and political others.

Peace and Justice Evangelicals are a loose network of pastors, non-profit leaders, professors, and activists who focus their work on issues of poverty, racial justice, gender equality, immigration reform, criminal justice reform, war and militarism and “creation care” (i.e. environmental protection). A small but growing minority in the larger evangelical world, many belong to traditional evangelical institutions but are in tension with them because of their political beliefs.

We hope this guide will be useful to journalists, pundits and members of the public interested in having a clearer picture of the relationship between religion and politics than is provided in many media descriptions of religious actors on the American political scene. While not exhaustive, our typology demonstrates the range of American evangelicalism and the significant differences among believers.

CRCC created “The Varieties of American Evangelicalism” in advance of the 2018 midterm election. This short report intended to help journalists and other observers of American cultural and political life better understand the nuances of Evangelicals’ political engagement, highlighted and exposed by their overwhelming political support for Donald Trump. We describe five varieties or “types” of evangelicals who share a common evangelical theology but differ greatly on how Christian teachings are to be lived out in American culture and politics: MAGA-vangelicals, Neo-fundamentalists, iVangelicals, Kingdom Christians, and Peace and Justice Evangelicals (click links to read more about each).

Heading into the 2024 election, we continue to see unwavering evangelical support for Trump and the MAGA agenda. The majority of white evangelicals will vote for Trump, even if they are not all MAGA-vangelicals. At the same time, the 2020 election and the subsequent January 6 insurrection, the Dobbs decision and state battles over abortion, immigration, a sense of lost influence in American society, Trump’s legal troubles and more are influencing how evangelicals across our typology apply their shared beliefs in this presidential election.

We have observed changes within and between our five varieties of evangelicals over the last four years, pointing to an internal fight over what values truly represent evangelical Christianity and how it should engage with issues in American culture.

First, it’s important to note that our five types are not equal in numbers or strength. MAGA-vangelicals might be the most vocal, but iVangelicals (megachurch Christians, focused primarily on individual sin and salvation) account for the bulk of voters. This group tends to be solidly Republican, though some may have soured on Trump over the past few years. Kingdom Christians and Peace and Justice Evangelicals  are far fewer in numbers and lack the institutional power of conservative evangelicals, but their efforts to sway iVangelicals away from Trump have gained prominence this year.

It is also important to note that evangelicalism is increasingly diverse, mostly with Latino and Asian representation. The polling category of “white evangelical” obscures this diversity, though the majority of evangelicals across all of our varieties are white and older.

Here are some trends:

Trump-vangelicals become MAGA-vangelicals

What we previously labeled as “Trump-vangelicals” are now better described as MAGA-vangelicals, though “MAGA” may be just the latest name of a fluid movement. They represent a broader, perhaps more permanent nationalist movement that pines for the “better days” of the past. In this, Trump has now become the tool through which to achieve their social and political aims, which in many ways are unchanged from the concerns of their forebears of a century ago. Those early evangelicals (known at the time as Fundamentalists) worked to outlaw the teaching of evolution in public schools and railed against the threats of “Bolshevism” and “Modernism” to America’s identity as a “Christian nation.” One significant difference between today’s MAGA-vangelicals and the evangelicals of 100 years ago is that there is currently an increased acceptance of armed violence to “take back the country” from the liberals who, in their view, would turn America into a godless, perhaps satanic society.

Neo-fundamentalists shrink

Many leaders we had identified as “Neo-fundamentalist evangelicals” are becoming both more, and less, identified with Trump and the MAGA agenda. We originally observed the neo-fundamentalist evangelicals taking a moral line against Trump while also supporting his policies. Now, eight years after the 2016 election, we see leaders like John MacArthur (who is a graduate of the flagship fundamentalist school, Bob Jones University) and Southern Baptist Seminary President Albert Mohler border crossing into MAGA-vangelical territory by more vocally supporting Trump as the (imperfect) vehicle through which they can advance their religious and political aims.

On the other hand, Russell Moore, now the editor of the mainstream evangelical magazine, Christianity Today, remains a stalwart never Trumper. David French argued in his New York Times column that a vote for Kamala Harris (along with down ballot conservatives) would “save conservatism.” Support for Harris, however, should not be overstated. Just as politicians defecting from Trump (like Mike Pence, Dick and Liz Cheney) hope to defend the Republican party from MAGAism, the religious rejection of Trump is in defense of a conservative interpretation of evangelical Christianity. French, Moore, and former pastor Curtis Chang are leading an effort to help evangelicals put Jesus over political party. Another effort puts forth broad Christian convictions on engaging in politics, such that evangelicals of all varieties can feel some sense of unity without it affecting anyone’s religious beliefs, political perspectives or voting decisions.

Nonetheless, given the percentage of white evangelicals who voted for Trump in 2020, it is apparent that many neo-fundamentalists did vote for Trump, supporting his policies if not his rhetoric. They are likely to do so again.

Evangelicals for Harris

Kingdom Christians and Peace and Justice Evangelicals are getting serious about applying their grassroots organizing, skills of persuasion and religious conversion by making appeals to Jesus’ teachings, rather than to longstanding evangelical dogma, in the effort to convert iVangelicals from Republican and Trump/MAGA supporters into conscientious voters for Harris.

There are three separate but related efforts in this regard: Evangelicals for Harris, Christians for Kamala, and Vote Common Good, with each having similar strategies in arguing that “true” evangelical Christian teachings support Harris, not Trump. In fact, Evangelicals for Harris made a significant initial splash by calling Trump a “false prophet.” Each of these efforts include well-known evangelical leaders (several of whom are part of the two other pro-Kamala groups) in their effort to emphasize how Harris is the candidate that best embodies “true Christian values” as opposed to Trump.

Interestingly, none of these groups are calling for a new religious movement. They all reference the same religious and theological sources to mobilize their constituencies, both actual and potential. But distinct from those who would vote for Harris to “save conservatism,” this group argues that the true values embedded in evangelical Christianity support Democratic policies on issues such as economic issues, affordable health care, and creation care, and not Trump or the MAGA agenda.

These efforts target our largest type – iVangelicals, focused on personal values and salvation. Yet, converting Trump voters to Harris voters may involve a form of a religious conversion, considering Trump’s status as MAGA martyr. Further, to the extent they do find success in this effort, it is not at all clear whether any converted voters will fully move into the orbit of Kingdom Christians or Peace and Justice Evangelicals and remain there over the longer term.

Running the numbers

If history is any measure, significant support from evangelicals for Harris is unlikely.
Since at least the 1960s, a majority of white evangelicals have voted for the Republican candidate for president in every election but one, with Barry Goldwater in 1964 receiving only 34 percent of the white evangelical vote (and only 38.5 percent of the overall popular vote). In 2020, Trump tied Richard Nixon in winning the highest proportion of white evangelicals voting for a candidate: 84 percent.

Thus, as we approach the 2024 US presidential election, the question on everyone’s mind returns to polling: Will Trump maintain his overwhelming advantage among white evangelicals, and (considering recent declines within evangelicalism) will their support be enough to propel him back to the White House? Or will Harris draw away enough evangelical votes in key battleground states to push her over the edge?

The stakes are high not only for the presidential election but the faith itself. Long after the election, evangelicals across the varieties will continue to campaign for their vision of evangelicalism and how its members should enact their faith in the larger culture.

Who

This group constitutes the white Christian nationalist core of Trump’s political base, with some Latino, Asian and African-American pastors also aligning themselves with this movement.

What

The key to this demographic is political power: access to it, holding it, excluding other groups from it and using it to advance a conservative, nationalistic vision of evangelical Christianity, particularly around abortion and “religious freedom.” This political power is used to limit the rights of groups to which Trump-vangelicals are morally opposed, such as those who support LGBTQ civil rights, as well as to limit access more generally to America through their support for anti-immigration policies. This group interprets biblical prophecy in light of Trump’s foreign policy agenda and actions. Trump is often referred to as Cyrus, the Persian king who freed the Israelites from their captivity in Babylon and enabled the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. The fact that Trump is the 45th president, and Cyrus’ actions are recounted in Isaiah, chapter 45, is seen as having prophetic significance. Like Cyrus, Trump is an ungodly ruler who is nonetheless guided by the hand of God to bring biblical prophecy into reality.

When

The religious freedom rhetoric of Trump’s most ardent evangelical supporters harkens back to the 1970s, when federal enforcement of civil rights law began to infringe on conservative religious institutions’ ability to discriminate based on race, specifically in schools organized and operated by Protestant fundamentalists in the South, such as Bob Jones University (BJU). Thus, in response to the exercise of state power to demand civil rights concessions from institutions like BJU, many activists who would later become Trump-vangelicals cast themselves as a persecuted minority at war with secularizing influences in American politics. They built a political movement that allowed them to amass and maintain political power and influence as media personalities, judges, lobbyists and elected officials at all levels of government.

Jesus said love our neighbors as ourselves but never told Caesar how to run Rome-he never said Roman soldiers should turn the other cheek in battle or that Caesar should allow all the barbarians to be Roman citizens or that Caesar should tax the rich to help poor. That’s our job.

— Jerry Falwell (@JerryFalwellJr) January 26, 2018

Why

This movement sees itself as fulfilling the end-times prophecies of the Gospel by rejecting “Neo-Marxist” social justice movements (some from within evangelicalism) and pledging unstinting support for the state of Israel. During the Reagan era, the precursors to this group saw the world as a struggle of great ideas — Western capitalist democracy grounded in Christianity pitted against state-entangled Islam in Iran and Marxist secularism in the USSR. It also saw the world through the lens of American hegemony both ideologically and militarily, with evangelical Christianity playing a role in furthering American dominance on the world stage.

Where

The vast majority of MAGA-vangelicals are white, either in smaller communities or the suburban and exurban “red counties” that ring dense, diverse, blue-leaning urban centers.

How

MAGA-vangelicals transmit and receive information through their own institutions such as churches, schools (grammar school through seminary), publishing houses and sympathetic media organizations like Fox News, the media operations of key religious figures, and religio-political networks established by activists.

Notable Figures 

Updated in 2024

• Franklin Graham
• Samuel Rodriguez
• Paula White
• Lance Wallnau
• Jurgen and Leanne Malthesius

Read More

How a Growing Christian Movement is Seeking to Change America

Who

Neo-fundamentalists are evangelicals who are no less theologically and politically conservative than Trump-vangelicals, but who maintain a purist approach to theology and morality that determines which people or groups they will cooperate with to achieve their aims. Thus, while they appear to take the moral high road in calling out other evangelicals for their alignment with Donald Trump, they happily reap the benefits when his administration furthers the aims of evangelical Christianity, such as the appointment of conservative, anti-abortion judges; restrictions on LGBTQ rights; and limits on immigration. The essential difference is that neo-fundamentalists desire to appear as though they are less politically “all in” than Trump-vangelicals by expressing consternation about the lack of morals displayed by conservative political leaders in the mold of Donald Trump. Nonetheless, neo-fundamentalist evangelicals are still a significant part of the evangelical political effort in the US and a key component of Trump’s political base.

What

Neo-fundamentalists occupy the political and theological ground between Trump-vangelicals and iVangelicals. Neo-fundamentalists often provide the carefully articulated theological and moral ideology that supports other evangelicals and that underlies the more overtly political stances of the Trump-vangelicals, as well as the more individualistic practices of the iVangelicals.

In this role, neo-fundamentalists emphasize orthodoxies both in personal behavior and moral action as vital, indispensable elements of their evangelical faith. Thus, true neo-fundamentalist evangelicals can never support what in their view are immoral practices, such as abortion and “non-traditional” gender roles and identities. Nor can they support any person who exhibits general sexual amorality, lack of fidelity in marriage and the like. For neo-fundamentalists, personal morals are the most important markers of righteousness. Not only are these qualities the bedrock of their conception of the Christian life, they are non-negotiable in how they live their own lives and in what they expect from others.

When

Neo-fundamentalists’ roots are in the publicly non-political theology of evangelicalism from before the emergence of the Religious Right in the late 1970s. While evangelicals of that era maintained a conservative social, moral and political outlook, they remained largely out of the political fray other than in their voting behavior. Yet, their perspective was similar to the neo-fundamentalists of today (in fact, some of the current leaders of this group were active in the 1970s, such as John MacArthur). Both then and now, they provide political commentary through a moral lens, based on their theology, that advocates for conservative positions and emphasizes the preservation of moral and religious purity among the faithful.

Why

Most salient for neo-fundamentalists is that they have historically made distinctions between their own views of what evangelical Christianity is (or should be) and other forms of conservative Christianity, such as Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity and other expressions of evangelicalism. Thus, neo-fundamentalists seek to maintain the most restrictive forms of relationships, not only with other Christians but also with the leaders of other religious, social and political groups. Further, they tend to focus less on mobilizing for political ends than preaching a pure and unadulterated form of Christian belief and morals.

Where

Neo-fundamentalists are located in various evangelical institutional spheres, such as individual “community” churches, in denominations like the Southern Baptist Convention and the Presbyterian Church in America, theology schools and evangelical media, including radio stations, web and print media. In some cases, an entire institution can be considered neo-fundamentalist, such as John MacArthur’s Grace Community Church or Bob Jones University. In other cases, neo-fundamentalists are part of larger institutions. For example, Jerry Falwell Jr.’s support for Donald Trump—and our inclusion of him as a Trump-vangelical—contradicts the recent neo-fundamentalist responses to Trump’s moral laxity from many students at Falwell’s Liberty University.

How

Neo-fundamentalists claim authority as morally and religiously “pure” Christians and make their views known through and within their institutions. For instance, the students at Liberty University sought to distance themselves from Trump as a moral representative, but not from his domestic policies and global political perspective. Similarly, Vice President Mike Pence’s recent visit to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting exposed a split within the denomination over this very issue. Many of the attendees supported Pence’s overtly political address to the convention. Others opposed his political message as inappropriate for the occasion, but not as an affront to their basic political commitments and beliefs.

Notable Figures

• Russell Moore, Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission
• Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
• Tony Evans, pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas

Read More

The Leaner and Arguably Meaner Evangelical Church

Revisiting the legacy of Jerry Falwell Sr. in Trump’s America

Who

iVangelicals are concentrated in the evangelical megachurch movement and focus on reaching large numbers of people through popular worship services, a wide range of programs and small group ministries. Because of their institutional concentration in megachurches (minimum size of 2,000 regular weekly attenders, with many megachurches reaching upwards of 20,000 members or more), iVangelicals represent probably the largest segment of American evangelicals. Most of these churches are predominantly white, but there are many Latino and Asian megachurches that can be classified in this category. There are also many African-American megachurches; however, owing to the traditionally conservative political stances of evangelicalism, most African-Americans do not identify with evangelicalism as a movement.

What

For iVangelical megachurches, the Sunday worship service is the core religious experience. Most megachurches are suburban, which allows for an extensive physical plant, including the main meeting space as well as large facilities for children and youth. Vast parking lots are often required for the large crowds that attend services and other events each week. Church services and preaching styles focus on individual transformation, whether spiritual or lifestyle, often emphasizing repentance and salvation, personal renewal, prayer and passionate worship. Emphasis is also placed on parenting, family, self-improvement, managing money, success and positive thinking.

Beliefs about society and politics may be included in the mix without explicitly naming political affiliations, although favoring generally conservative viewpoints. iVangelical institutions are organized around a model that emphasizes individual choice, offering a large variety of programs for all age groups and multiple worship services to cater to different tastes in music and worship style, all with the goal of attracting a broad range of people to the church.

When

Large evangelical churches have been around at least since the industrialization and urbanization of the U.S. in the 19th century. But it was only in the the mid-20th century that megachurches became a significant phenomenon. The number of megachurches has multiplied rapidly since the 1970s, generally corresponding with the growth of suburbs across the United States.

Why

iVangelicals believe that the world’s core problem is individual sin. Salvation from sin is only found through faith in Jesus Christ, which results in a transformed life. It follows, then, that the general model of social change is individual: If enough individuals are converted, the world will change, including the emergence of better political and economic structures.

How

iVangelicals attract large numbers by offering attractive worship and programming and using marketing and business techniques to evangelize to potential congregants. They excel at appropriating elements of the larger culture to provide a “relevant” church atmosphere and remain steadfastly non-controversial in their politics and social engagement. The general message has a conservative orientation, but is designed and delivered so as to be non-offensive.

iVangelical churches are administered on a corporate model with a board of elders led by the senior pastor, easily memorable mission and vision statements, strategic goals and corporate-style budgets. Megachurches require large, paid staff teams as well as large cohorts of volunteers for technical production, worship teams and bands, and hospitality and pastoral counseling. Because of the size of individual churches, pastors remain influential within their own and immediate networks but not necessarily outside of them. However, leaders do network with other leaders, and are known to read each other’s books and participate in the same conferences.

Notable Figures

• Joel Osteen, Lakewood Church, Houston
• Rene Molina, Iglesia Restauracion, Los Angeles
• T.D. Jakes, The Potter’s House Church, Dallas
• Greg Laurie, Harvest Christian Fellowship, California and Hawaii
• Luke Barnett, Dream City Church, Phoenix

Read More

How California’s Megachurches Changed Christian Culture 

Who

Congregations of Kingdom Christians strive to mirror the demographic and socioeconomic mix of the urban neighborhoods where they are rooted. They often include a more diverse mix of Asian, Latino and Black members than other evangelical institutions, where ethnic diversity is largely aspirational and whites compose majorities and hold the organizational power. This hyperlocal representation reflects the grassroots, service-oriented vision of the Kingdom of God on earth that distinguishes Kingdom Christians from other movements on the evangelical spectrum—including dominionist and reconstructionist Christians, who also use “Kingdom” language but whose embrace of nationalist ideology and exclusion of religious “others” aligns them more closely with Trump-vangelicals and neo-Fundamentalists.

What

Though leaders among Kingdom Christians often critique the economic and political systems that produce poverty and racial injustice, the focus of their efforts is on creating relationships in the local community and shaping policy through engagement with local officials.  The ethos of Kingdom Christians thus reflects an inclusive form of Kingdom Theology that is marked by a keenly localized concern for human flourishing and the systemic sources of suffering. This particular expression of Kingdom Theology is present-oriented and non-apocalyptic—in other words, the Kingdom of God is to be realized in the communities where believers live, not in a future polity located in the Middle East. Its inclusivity hinges on the belief that positive social change in local communities should benefit everyone, not just those who identify as Christians.

When

Kingdom Christians’ ambivalence toward larger denominational and political institutions, as well as their focus on the needs of local communities, shares some characteristics with earlier, largely urban expressions of American Christianity like the Social Gospel movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the Jesus movement of the 1960s and 70s. But Kingdom Christians are distinct from those antecedents both in their ethnic diversity and in the organization of their social outreach around local populations. The emergence of Kingdom Christians parallels the rise of social media in the early 2000s, which facilitated networking outside the traditional denominational and political structures that support the national aspirations of conservative evangelical groups as well as peace-and-justice evangelicals.

Why

Based on their reading of the Gospel narratives about the life and teaching of Jesus, Kingdom Christians believe that building and realizing the Kingdom of God necessarily starts with caring for those who are suffering in the church and its local environment. Pursuing political power for its own sake is un-Jesus-like, in their view. They see creating a network of local volunteers to befriend and do laundry for the homeless, for example, as a clearer expression of Kingdom Theology than running for national political office.

Where

Largely concentrated in ethnically and socioeconomically diverse urban areas, Kingdom Christians often meet in rented spaces. They are often part of networks of organizations that share the same service-oriented ethos, but the emphasis is on seeding new congregations that have an organic relationship to their communities rather than expanding a brand or franchise, which is more typical of iVangelicals.

How

This work that Kingdom Christians undertake in their communities entails partnering with other groups and organizations that share the same commitment to local efforts to bring positive social change. Neither mainstream political party accurately mirrors Kingdom Christians’ commitment to local human development work, and communities of Kingdom Christians also tend to be non-ideological. For example, while they may be reluctant to promote same-sex marriage, members are also averse to efforts to discriminate against LGBTQ people under the guise of “religious freedom.”

Notable Figures

Note that the hyperlocal orientation of Kingdom Christians congregations means that many of their leaders do not have a national profile. Here are a few prominent examples:

• Greg Russinger, Laundry Love network and Alongsiders Church, Portland, Oregon
• Kevin Haah, New City Church of Los Angeles
• Rev. Lee de León, Temple Calvario Community Development Corporation
• Russell Jeung, San Francisco State University

Read More

How a New Generation is Changing Evangelical Christianity

How Will Church Plants Grow Without Becoming Megachurches

The Kingdom of God and American Exceptionalism

Who

The Peace and Justice wing of evangelicalism is a loose network of evangelical pastors, non-profit leaders, professors and activists. They are a small but growing minority in the larger evangelical world. While the “old guard” leaders tend to be white and male, younger leaders (in their 30s-60s) are more diverse.

What

The key political issues they seek to address are poverty, racial justice, gender equality, immigration reform, criminal justice reform, war and militarism and “creation care” (i.e. environmental protection).  Some are beginning to move toward LGBTQ equality, but are treading carefully because of resistance inside their institutions. Most are pro-life on the issue of abortion, but less focused on making abortion illegal than other evangelical Christians. Few are active in this area, but those who are try to seek common ground with pro-choice folks to work on ways to reduce the number of abortions.

When

Peace and Justice evangelicals can trace their origins to the late 1960s publication titled The Other Side (originally Freedom Now), which represented a freshly emerging evangelical social conscience forming around issues of racial justice. Following close behind, and in some ways inspired by The Other Side, was the Sojourners community, and Sojourners Magazine, which is still active today. In 1973, a group of evangelical college professors wrote The Chicago Declaration of Social Concern, that ultimately formed the basis from which Evangelicals for Social Action was launched as a national organization in 1978. Also important was the publication of Ron Sider’s Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, originally published in 1977, which has been regularly assigned as required reading in evangelical colleges and seminaries for decades.

Why

This group tends to adhere to Anabaptist or Wesleyan theology rather than Calvinism or Dispensationalism. They see themselves as the inheritors of the Tolstoy/Gandhi/King/Chavez tradition of nonviolent resistance, and many are pacifist and deeply suspicious of nationalist impulses in American government, which they often analogize with the Roman Empire in the Bible. Many are also suspicious of or opposed to capitalism as an economic system. Peace and Justice evangelicals are thus sometimes to the left of both the Democratic and Republican parties on many issues because political power is seen to rest upon violence.

Where

Many Peace and Justice Evangelicals reside within evangelical institutions but are nonetheless in tension with them because of their political beliefs. They tend to have less influence than conservatives in those institutions and thus operate as a network outside traditional institutional structures.

The network that Peace and Justice evangelicals use to get their message across includes the following organizations:

• Sojourners magazine
• Small-scale non-profits (Matthew25, Evangelicals for Social Action, The Justice Conference, Christian Peacemaker Teams, Red Letter Christians). Many are affiliated with the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA)
• Evangelical colleges and some seminaries. Calvin College, Goshen College, Messiah College, Bethel University, Eastern University and North Park University are notable hotbeds, although most evangelical colleges have some faculty that are peace and justice evangelicals, particularly in the humanities and social sciences
• Some evangelical denominations (Evangelical Covenant Church, Free Methodist Church, American Baptist) are friendlier to these leaders and have pastors who are openly pursuing a peace and justice agenda, but most pastors in these denominations are not
• Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, a college campus ministry that allows space for peace and justice leaders and activities, although not every leader or chapter is committed
• African-American congregations and denominations. Although most African-American congregations and denominations (AME, COGIC, Missionary Baptist) wouldn’t call themselves “evangelical,” most have evangelical theological beliefs, and many are involved in peace and justice work. Some African-American pastors (like William Barber, Cecil Murray, Mark Whitlock, Najuma Smith-Pollard) serve as inspiration for peace and justice evangelicals and have formed partnerships with them on particular projects (like William Barbers’ Poor People’s Campaign)

How

Their key strategies are to seek “bottom-up” change through grassroots mobilization and protest. They seek legislative influence but from outside the system—few if any seek political office—although some have connections with influential Democratic politicians. Although they resist aligning with political parties, which is seen as corrupting to their faith, the Democratic party is seen as preferable, but part of the same nationalist/capitalist/militarist enterprise as the Republicans. A popular bumper sticker states: “God is not a Republican…or a Democrat.”

Notable Figures

The Old Guard:

• Jim Wallis, Sojourners
• Ron Sider, Evangelicals for Social Action
• Tony Campolo
• Stanley Hauerwas, Duke Divinity School
• John Perkins, Christian Community Development Association

The New Guard:

• Soong-Chan Rah, North Park University
• Alexia Salvatierra, Fuller Theological Seminary
• Robert Chao Romero, Chicano Studies professor at UCLA
• Lisa Sharon Harper
• Shane Claiborne

Read More

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This report is a project of the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture in partnership with the Knight Program in Media and Religion. Its impetus was our dissatisfaction with how “evangelicalism” was being defined following the election of Donald Trump. Because of that dissatisfaction, CRCC convened our staff and fellows to think through the different possible types, or varieties, of evangelicalism that we could identify. As with most projects at CRCC, this was a collaborative effort.

CRCC thanks the following people for their contributions to this report:

Brad Christerson

Hebah Farrag

Richard Flory

Wanjiru Gitau

Andrew Johnson

Brie Loskota

Juan Martinez

Najuma Smith-Pollard

Nick Street

Megan Sweas

Mark Whitlock

Diane Winston

Images by Margi Denton

How to cite this report: 

“The Varieties of American Evangelicalism.” USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture. November 1, 2018. https://dornsife.usc.edu/crcc/report/the-varieties-of-american-evangelicalism/