As we were: American Evangelicals
In my last post here, I announced a new topic for discussion: the documentary Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory (PBS), narrated by historian Randall Balmer. I’ve been very busy and have had to neglect this blog for a week, but I still encourage you to rent or buy the documentary on Amazon Prime. I’ll be watching it again myself soon and will announce when the discussion begins and which section we’ll be discussing. On that day, I’ll post my comment and invite you to participate.
About the documentary: Yes, it’s old. It’s from 1990. So the American evangelicalism it shows and describes (with many video segments showing churches and interviews) will be from the 1980s. But that’s just how we were.
Why this particular discussion? Because I’m looking for clues that might explain how we (American evangelicals) are doing today (2024). Was there anything back then that pointed to the present?
Aside from that, I’m very nostalgic. I miss what some of us were like back then. And I have to admit that when I first saw this documentary on PBS, I actually had tears in my eyes at some points. Some scenes reminded me of the 1950s!
How has American evangelicalism changed since that documentary was made? What would Randall Balmer show today if he made a new documentary about American evangelicalism? Well, he made one! Or at least he’s featured in a documentary – one I recently reviewed here. “Bad Faith.” But is that all there is to say about contemporary American evangelicalism? I don’t think so.
And for those of you who live outside the United States, I’d love to know how closely the American evangelicalism of the 1980s shown in the video correlates with evangelicalism in your location. Are there sections of the documentary that are completely foreign to your evangelical context? Are there sections that compare closely to your evangelical context?
The documentary is available in excerpts on Youtube, but I will not announce the excerpts for discussion because the documentary is copyrighted. I will use the pay-per-view documentary and its excerpts. For ethical reasons, I cannot recommend watching the documentary on Youtube, but that is up to you. I am not even sure if all the excerpts are on Youtube.
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