Word: presbyterianism
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Some fellow clergymen viewed his ministry as an entrepreneurial sideshow. One of them, the Rev. John Killinger of Lynchburg's First Presbyterian Church, rose in the pulpit in 1981 and asked his parishioners whether they believed Jesus would ever have appeared on the Old Time Gospel Hour. It was a sharp rebuke from the right side of the tracks. Falwell struck back with typical venom, mispronouncing Killinger's name as Dillinger. Falwell's aggressive tone may have given some of his supporters violent ideas: Killinger and his family began getting death threats...
...recounted by Historian George Marsden in his definitive 1980 study, Fundamentalism and American Culture, many of the conservatives turned into angry militants during the cultural upheavals following World War I. The term Fundamentalist was coined in this period to identify a battler for orthodoxy. Presbyterian Evangelist Billy Sunday typified the new ornery style of combat. The liberal, Sunday fulminated, was a "hog-jowled, weasel-eyed, sponge- columned, jelly-spined, pussyfooting, four-flushing, charlotte-russed Christian." At the 1925 Scopes trial, in which a Tennessee schoolteacher was convicted of expounding evolutionary theory, Fundamentalists were ridiculed by the press and perceived...
Another distinction involves church affiliations. Evangelicals often coexist amicably with liberals within mainline denominations, such as Methodist and Presbyterian groups, that hold membership in the National Council of Churches. These bodies tolerate a variety of beliefs. All true Fundamentalists, strictly speaking, belong to congregations or denominations that root out any hint of liberalism. As many as 10 million members worship in wholeheartedly Fundamentalist churches.* There are several times as many Evangelicals, both inside and outside the mainline groups. The largest Evangelical body, the 14.4 million-member Southern Baptist Convention, is now facing a powerful takeover campaign by its Fundamentalist wing...
...student groups. President Reagan supports school prayer, and antiabortion legislation and several of his appointments have gratified the religious right. Among them: William Bennett, a Roman Catholic who backs religious day schools, as Secretary of Education; former Moral Majority Lobbyist Robert Billings as Assistant Secretary of Education; Pro-Life Presbyterian C. Everett Koop as Surgeon General...
...specter of schoolbook censorship, legislation of private morality, and the packing of courts with doctrinaire "pro-family" judges. Some of the most thoughtful objections come from the Evangelical movement. The "packaging of the Gospel with politics" is unfortunate for the faith, says Chattanooga's Ben Haden, a conservative Presbyterian pastor and TV preacher. He compares the Fundamentalists who are venturing into politics to the church liberals who stressed social action over the Gospel in the 1960s. Charles Colson, the Nixon aide who served seven months in federal prison for his role in the Watergate scandal, is a born-again Christian...