Christian right

The word “evangelical” is derived from the Greek euangelion, which in classical Greek meant “the reward for bringing good news.” In New Testament times the sense of the word was transferred to mean the good tidings themselves. The 2nd century Church Fathers  began referring to the authors of the Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – as Evangelists, “bringers of the “good news” of Jesus Christ.

Martin Luther used “evangelical” to describe his theology when he separated from the Catholic church in the 16th century in part over his belief that sins are forgiven based on faith alone, and not “works” – acts performed with the expectation of a reward.

“Evangelical” became associated with the first “Great Awakening,” in eighteenth century America where under the influence of Puritan Jonathan Edwards, among others, it represented the “good news” of salvation through Christ, emphasizing the need for a personal conversion experience. It was the latter that can be identified with the phrase “born again.” As the emphasis on conversion extended to converting outsiders evangelicalism became associated with revivalism. In its focus on spiritual rebirth and individual devotion American evangelicalism drew on the doctrine of pietism, which rejects political control of spiritual affairs, in the words of James Emery White, rejecting the “compulsory and cultural” in favor of the “voluntary and personal.”

The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) was founded in 1942. By its own account the timing did not seem particularly auspicious for the creation of an ecclesiastical organization. The US was just emerging from the Great Depression, and had suffered through two world wars, which, along with advances in organic chemistry, astronomy and anthropology, called into question the existence, power, and goodness of a deity.