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resident Jimmy Carter unabashedly
confesses that he is one. So do Senator Mark
O. Hatfield of Oregon and Congressman John
Anderson of lllinois. Charles Colson, former
aide to Richard Nixon , has written a best-selling
autobiography recounting how he became one.
Eldridge Cleaver, onetime Black Panther leader,
returned to the United States to tace tr ial on
assault charges as the result of an experience
that made him one.
What these individuals- and perhaps 40 million
more Amer icans and additional mil lions worldwide
-profess to be are " born-again" or evangelical
Christians. The terms " born again" and
" evangelical " are used interchangeably to
describe these Christians because of the two
salient aspects of their faith. They share in
common a highly subjective ' 'born-again ' '
experience, a turning point in their lives when
they committed themselves to Christ. And they
believe in evangelism, the proclaiming of the
redempt ive message of Jesus ' lite, teaching and
atoning death- the "good news" (called
euaggelion
in the Greek New Testament and later
dubbed
godspel
by the Anglo-Saxons).
Previous to the 1976 presidential election,
evangelical Christianity had been growing quietly
but impressively for over a decade-often at the
expense of played out , mainline churches.
lndeed, some Evangelicals had been contending
for severa! years that they represented the silent
and overlooked majority of Protestants. But not
until the presidential campaign of Jimmy Carter
did a " great awakening" occur among the media
as they focused on Evangelicals and discovered
their numbers and influence.
A Galluf? survey released five weeks before the
November election revealed that 34 percent of
1,553 Americans interviewed claimed to have
been " born again. " Among Protestants alone,
nearly half (48 percent) said they were " born–
again" Christians, wh ich projected toa
nationwide total of 43 r:nillion adu lts. Gall up also
found that 58 percent of Protestants (compared
to 38 percent of Catholics) have t ried to convert
others to Christ through "witnessing" in one form
or another. Even more surprising, some 46
percent of Protestants- and 31 percent of
Catholics- polled believe that "the Bible is the
actual word of God and is to be taken literally,
word for word. "
Gallup concluded: " AI I of our studies wou ld
seem to indicate that God is alive and well in
America. " He observed that the evangelical view
is " currently the 'hot' movement in the
church . ... 1976 can be considered the 'Year of
the Evangelical. ' "
The historical and spiritual roots of
THE REBIRTH
OFTHE
"BORN AGAIN//
MOVEMENT
by
D. Paul Graunke
The election of a "born-again" Christian president has focused attention on the most significant
movement among American Protestants.
lt
has also tempted Evangelicals to become involved
with the election of candidates as we/1 as the e/ection to grace.
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