Amen to everything here, with a couple small additions.(I was a young man and a new Christian at this time, moving around a lot geographically, and getting to know a variety of Christian communities all in this orbit, and your points fit well with what was going on.)
When you say "Evangelicalism changed after the 1970s primarily because American politics changed and because new groups of people – especially conservative southerners – entered the movement and quickly came to dominate it," that's right. That dynamic should be placed in context of the wider cultural change bringing the South to prominence. Culture--in the sense of where the energy and creativity is--moves around: New York City in the early 1960s, California in the late '60s/early '70s, and then the South from the mid-'70s on. It's a big story deserving a history of its own, but Robert Altman's 1975 film "Nashville" serves as a major marker of this development. Carter was part of it, too, as well as cable television which brought southerners like Falwell and Robertson at al. into people's homes nationwide. Interacting with southerners brought a lot of changes: One was that, while in the north evangelicalism wasa countercultural minority, southern evangelicals hailing from the Bible Belt had experience with being a major force in their society, respected and influential. They were confident in a way northerners weren't at the time, and that was quite attractive to a lot of people.
There were also evolutions within evangelicalism that presaged a shift towards more intentional political engagement. In 1975 most evangelicals I knew were premillennialist, and politics was simply irrelevant to what they were up to. Some might have even used the term "worldly" to describe it, though whether one used that word was also becoming a marker differentiating people who were fundamentalists (who used it a lot) from evangelicals (who increasingly didn't). By no longer having a category that captured things that weren't exactly sinful but that were viewed as potentially harmful or at least distracting, evangelicals at the time lost the ability to critique political involvement and its potential for damaging Christian life and witness. (At the time, the only political danger being perceived--especially by younger evangelicals--was apathy, especially about abortion). There was also a wide and diverse movement to develop an appreciation for the "holistic" implications of the gospel, sometimes conceived as a "cultural mandate." At the center of this was probably Francis Schaeffer, but a lot of people were exploring similar themes. Schaeffer's work began exploring philosophy and the arts, which fit the mood of the 1960s, but as is well known he became more and more political. In this he was influential and representative. People who started out "learning about the world" so they could more effectively evangelize folk who were into Ingmar Bergman films, eg, ended up learning about the world so they could change and maybe even run it. That development came out of evangelicalism--a result of Biblical, theological, and missiological reflection--and wasn't just a defensive reaction to what was happening in politics and society.
I remember the book well. It slipped out of my personal library at some point, but you bring it all back. That was one pillar in the evangelicalism of my seminary formation, though with a West Coast (Fuller) tilt--which I think needs to be weighed in any full picture. From my orientation in evangelicalism at the time, TEDS did not represent a defining "center." And I don't think that was a one-off perception, though I admit my strong bias!
Amen to everything here, with a couple small additions.(I was a young man and a new Christian at this time, moving around a lot geographically, and getting to know a variety of Christian communities all in this orbit, and your points fit well with what was going on.)
When you say "Evangelicalism changed after the 1970s primarily because American politics changed and because new groups of people – especially conservative southerners – entered the movement and quickly came to dominate it," that's right. That dynamic should be placed in context of the wider cultural change bringing the South to prominence. Culture--in the sense of where the energy and creativity is--moves around: New York City in the early 1960s, California in the late '60s/early '70s, and then the South from the mid-'70s on. It's a big story deserving a history of its own, but Robert Altman's 1975 film "Nashville" serves as a major marker of this development. Carter was part of it, too, as well as cable television which brought southerners like Falwell and Robertson at al. into people's homes nationwide. Interacting with southerners brought a lot of changes: One was that, while in the north evangelicalism wasa countercultural minority, southern evangelicals hailing from the Bible Belt had experience with being a major force in their society, respected and influential. They were confident in a way northerners weren't at the time, and that was quite attractive to a lot of people.
There were also evolutions within evangelicalism that presaged a shift towards more intentional political engagement. In 1975 most evangelicals I knew were premillennialist, and politics was simply irrelevant to what they were up to. Some might have even used the term "worldly" to describe it, though whether one used that word was also becoming a marker differentiating people who were fundamentalists (who used it a lot) from evangelicals (who increasingly didn't). By no longer having a category that captured things that weren't exactly sinful but that were viewed as potentially harmful or at least distracting, evangelicals at the time lost the ability to critique political involvement and its potential for damaging Christian life and witness. (At the time, the only political danger being perceived--especially by younger evangelicals--was apathy, especially about abortion). There was also a wide and diverse movement to develop an appreciation for the "holistic" implications of the gospel, sometimes conceived as a "cultural mandate." At the center of this was probably Francis Schaeffer, but a lot of people were exploring similar themes. Schaeffer's work began exploring philosophy and the arts, which fit the mood of the 1960s, but as is well known he became more and more political. In this he was influential and representative. People who started out "learning about the world" so they could more effectively evangelize folk who were into Ingmar Bergman films, eg, ended up learning about the world so they could change and maybe even run it. That development came out of evangelicalism--a result of Biblical, theological, and missiological reflection--and wasn't just a defensive reaction to what was happening in politics and society.
I remember the book well. It slipped out of my personal library at some point, but you bring it all back. That was one pillar in the evangelicalism of my seminary formation, though with a West Coast (Fuller) tilt--which I think needs to be weighed in any full picture. From my orientation in evangelicalism at the time, TEDS did not represent a defining "center." And I don't think that was a one-off perception, though I admit my strong bias!