The modern evangelical movement does not take kindly to the secular life Americans are living and was seen as unmoral. The movement’s roots came from the ideas of the Fundamentalists in the early twentieth century. Shading away being called Fundamentalists, Evangelical Christians held the same principles and viewed “secular humanism pervaded all [the] aspects of American life, and that it was especially insidious and prevalent in the political environment” (Maurer 66). Originally the Evangelicals kept their distance from politics since it was “dirty” but in the late 1970’s that completely changed. A popular Evangelical Jerry Falwell, founder of the organization Moral Majority teamed up with Ronald Reagan and the Conservative Republicans in effort to bring American back to being a Christian nation. The Evangelicals wanted to end the secular views of pro-choice, homosexuality being accepted, feminism, and wanted to instill prayer back into the school system (Maurer 67).

Jerry Falwell see’s America as being lead astray from the Bible by the secular society and states, “We need to call America back to God, back to the Bible, and back to moral sanity” (Falwell 144). In order to combat the humanists in America, Falwell created a nonpartisan political organization named, Moral Majority. Falwell claims to support the separation of church and state but he dives into politics to implement his views of religion into the government by using morality as the issue. Moral Majority is framed to be pro-life, pro-traditional family, supporting equal rights for women, oppose illegal drug traffic, ERA and pornography.

The presentation of both Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism by Falwell is about working together for “a great revival of true Christianity in America” (Falwell 152). Falwell describes what is it to be a Fundamentalists along with their weakness of being pessimistic and by sitting on the sidelines with the countries politics and social life. He then notes how the Fundamentalists are helpful to the Evangelicals because they can preach the Bible with authority and conviction (Falwell 150). Next, Falwell goes into the Evangelical Movement and praises the good things that have come from it. With the praises come the areas of weakness too, by saying the Evangelicals need to stop worrying what the world thinks of them. Falwell does an excellent job in displaying the strengths and weakness and ties it up well with joining forces to continue the American revivalism. He points out that they have the same principles and secular people already see them as the same so why not work together in “turn[ing] America back to God” (Falwell 151).

Maurer explains that the rise of the evangelical movement were political issues in the 1980’s. The main issue was abortion laws in America, evangelicals believe that human life begins at conception, so they think that abortion is killing human life. He explains that the Moral Majority were pleased that Reagan was conservative, but they felt that the country as a whole was moving too far away what evangelicals considered to be important religious principles. Evangelical fears were increased by very public money and sex scandals in the 80’s. Gonzalez explained that American society after WWII was experiencing great changes. The baby boomers would be America’s largest generation. With the rise of suburban communities people would lean on churches for stability as well as places to socialize. There was an increased fear of Communism. As there became greater socioeconomic and racial differences between those in the inner-cities and the suburbs these differences expanded to where people worshiped. Gonzalez explains that the Civil Rights and feminist movements changed how American society viewed itself. The evangelical rebirth was in response to the rapid changes America was going through. Some evangelicals used the media to spread their message, and tried to appeal to a wider variety of people. Others felt they needed to work for more justice economically and socially.

Falwell is concerned with American society in the 80’s for several reasons. Throughout his writings he is hostile towards American liberals. He expresses fear that America is moving away from its Judeo-Christian past. Specifically he addresses abortion right, marriage equality, acceptance of all sexualities and what he perceived as an increase in the use of illegal drugs and pornography in American society.

He claims to have been waiting for other religious-minded individuals to speak out against the current American morality. Eventually he decided he would need to do it for himself. Falwell says that his Moral Majority does not consider itself a political party and they do not endorse political candidates. They “believe in the Separation of Church and state”. They also believe that morals are not exclusive to certain religious people, so they do not align with a specific religion. The Moral Majority wanted to see abortions made illegal. They do not believe in anything besides traditional marriage between a man and a woman. They do not support homosexual relations. They also want to stop illegal drug use and addiction. With pornography they do not condone censorship, but want to promote education and legislation to stop the use of pornography. They specifically mention economic boycotts to achieve this. They support Israel, as well as having a strong national defense system. They want equality for women, but do not support the Equal Rights Amendment. They do not support the ERA because they think it will lead to things like legal gay marriage. They believe that homosexuality is a “moral perversion”. They think that the rights of homosexual people should be preserved, but do not think that they should be given special treatment as a minority group.

For Falwell the fundamentalists are inspired by the Bible. He also tells Evangelicals that they should not worry that they are becoming too involved in political discussions, and cites a congressman that said religion is imperative in political decision making. He does not think that fundamentalists and evangelicals are very different theologically. He says that they hold the same beliefs about the Bible, and both fear that their youth are leaning too liberally. He wants fundamentalists and evangelicals to work together. He would also like those who are charismatic speakers to become leaders and speak up.