Purpose

My aim in establishing "American Evangelicalism for Beginners" is two-fold.


First, I've been asked by many people over the years to explain some of the stances Evangelicals have taken that non-Evangelicals find baffling, e.g. their often dismissive views on climate change, their moral outrage about hot-button political issues such as gay marriage and abortion, and their insistence on attempting to convert people, even those who are already Christians, and come from an ancient Christian historical tradition. As a former Evangelical, daughter of a Pentecostal pastor, I wish to address those questions in a wider forum, where the answers are available to all.

Second, I do believe that American Evangelicalism contains a broad streak of Fundamentalism that is damaging and hurtful to its own practitioners, and to the wider American democracy in instances where the voting body politic of Evangelicalism manages to enshrine its beliefs in American law. This is a danger that cannot be faced if non-Evangelicals are not aware of it, or do not understand the mental world-view behind it. I have no desire to add fuel to an already-polarized America's flames. Rather, I want to foster compassion on both sides, so that hopefully, our humanity will outweigh our religiosity, or our anger at religiosity, in every encounter we have.