Encyclopedia Of Evangelicalism [Revised, Expanded] 193279204X, 9781932792041

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Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism

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Also by Randall Balmer

Religion in American Life: A Short History (with Jon Butler and Grant Wacker) Growing Pains: Learning to Love My Father’s Faith Religion in Twentieth Century America Blessed Assurance: A History of Evangelicalism in America Grant Us Courage: Travels Along the Mainline of American Protestantism The Presbyterians (with John R. Fitzmier) Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America A Perfect Babel of Confusion: Dutch Religion and English Culture in the Middle Colonies

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Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism

Randall Balmer

Revised and Expanded Edition

Baylor University Press Waco, TX USA

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© 2004 by Baylor University Press All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of Baylor University Press.

Book Design by Diane Smith Cover Design by Jennifer Cox, used with permission by Westminster John Knox Press Cover Photo: Billy Graham With Arms Raised. © Bettmann/CORBIS

This is a revised and expanded edition of Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism, first published by Westminster John Knox in 2002.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Balmer, Randall Herbert. Encyclopedia of evangelicalism / Randall Balmer.— Rev. and expanded ed. p. cm. ISBN 1-932792-04-X (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Evangelicalism—Encyclopedias. 2. Evangelicalism—United States— Encyclopedias. I. Title. BR1640.B35 2004 270.8’2’03—dc22 2004010023

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

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This book is dedicated to the folks associated with the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals mentors, colleagues, and friends and especially to the memory of G. A. Rawlyk (1935–1995)

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Preface For more than a decade, in addition to other scholarly projects, I have been engaged in this quixotic venture of writing an encyclopedia of evangelicalism, one that would provide a sense of both the history and the extraordinary breadth of this popular movement. The task, though maddening at times, has also provided moments of insight and fascination as one topic led to another and still another, like tributaries leading off the beaten path into the brambles. While I have made every effort to be fair and accurate, I make no pretense of being definitive—that is, because this work emanates from the pen of one man, it inevitably bears some of his biases and interpretations. Some of those biases will be apparent in what has been included here. For the purposes of this project I have defined evangelicalism rather broadly, even though I know that many of the people and the organizations treated here prefer a more restrictive interpretation. My latitudinarian approach has yielded, I believe, a far more complex and textured portrait of evangelicalism in all of its diversity. I recognize that this encyclopedia, with its entries on individuals, organizations, denominations, theological terms, events, and movements, will be used primarily as a reference work. While I have no objection to that, I think this volume also offers a glimpse into evangelical mores and folkways; entries like “Fellowship,” “Just,” “Testimony,” “Watchnight Service,” “Sword Drill,” and “Gnomic Hebrew Moniker” (to name just a few) provide a sense of evangelicalism as a “lived” tradition, which is appropriate for a movement that, in the United States at least, is the culture’s dominant folk religion. The purview for this book, however, extends beyond the boundaries of the United States. I have sought to include relevant entries from Canada, Latin America, Great Britain, and elsewhere, although I readily acknowledge that the volume is weighted heavily toward North America. Evangelicalism itself, I believe, is a quintessentially North American phenomenon, deriving as it did from the confluence of Pietism, Presbyterianism, and the vestiges of Puritanism. Evangelicalism picked up peculiar characteristics from each strain—warm-hearted spirituality from the Pietists, for instance, doctrinal precisionism from the Presbyterians, and individualistic introspection from the Puritans—even as the North vii

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Preface

American context itself has profoundly shaped the various manifestations of evangelicalism: fundamentalism, neoevangelicalism, the holiness movement, pentecostalism, the charismatic movement, and various forms of AfricanAmerican and Hispanic evangelicalism. Although I bear ultimate responsibility for this work, my task was made easier by the assistance of several people. Holly Folk drafted most of the entries on evangelical colleges and Bible institutes and several of the pieces on contemporary Christian music groups. Tommy L. Faris drafted entries on various evangelical denominations, David DiSabatino did the same for the events and personalities surrounding the Jesus movement, and Philemon Sevastiades supplied text for many of the entries on theology. Michael L. Peterson provided information on the Society of Christian Philosophers and several related entries. Jesse T. Todd and J. Shawn Landres each supplied the first draft of an article. I am grateful for their contributions. I appreciate also the suggestions and corrections offered by critics and reviewers of the first edition; I have tried to accommodate their comments and to make the appropriate changes, though I emphasize again that I bear final responsibility for this volume. Donald Dayton looked over my initial list of entries and offered useful suggestions, and a gift from Lee and Deb Wilson financed some of the student assistance from which I benefited. Carey Newman, Diane Smith, and their colleagues at Baylor University Press expertly shepherded this revised edition to publication. A final note. The “References” section at the conclusion of many of the entries is suggestive rather than exhaustive. I make no pretense of having included a reference to everything a person has published or to all of the relevant literature on the topic. R.B. June 17, 2004 Ridgefield, Connecticut

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–A– Aberhart, William (1878–1943) Born in southwestern Ontario, William Aberhart graduated from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. Although he had been shaped theologically by Presbyterianism, he entered the dispensationalist orbit of *C. I. SCOFIELD around the turn of the century; Aberhart began to teach about the *RAPTURE and the premillennial return of Christ. He migrated west to Calgary, Alberta, in 1905, where he taught at Crescent Heights High School and preached at Westbourne Baptist Church. Aberhart, known to many as “Bible Bill,” attracted large audiences to his “Prophetic Bible Conferences,” dispensationalist Bible studies that emphasized biblical * INERRANCY, the imminent return of Jesus, and the imperative of *CONVERSION before it was too late. The conferences became so popular that they moved from Westbourne Baptist to the Grand Theatre, where Aberhart illustrated his teachings with a dispensational chart that measured six feet by twenty-one feet. In October 1924 his organization, Calgary Pro- phetic Bible Conference, began publishing Prophetic Voice, a monthly mag-azine that propagated dispensationalist and fundamentalist doctrines. Aberhart bitterly opposed the formation of the United Church of Canada in 1925, which he saw as the

incarnation of liberal or “modernist” theology. He formed the Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute in the fall of that year with the hope that graduates would fill rural pulpits and thereby resist the incur- sion of *MODERNISM; the new building for the school was dedicated in October 1927. Like Scofield, his mentor, Aberhart also started a correspondence course called Radio Sunday School in 1926, and in 1929, he began broadcasting his Prophetic Bible Conference over the radio. Aberhart’s success bred a kind of insularity, and his doctrines began to veer away from evangelical orthodoxy in the 1920s and into what Aberhart himself characterized as “extreme fundamentalism.” He taught that the Authorized Version, or King James Version, of the *BIBLE was inerrant, and that it had been translated from original manuscripts that had been hidden in the Swiss Alps, free from the accretions of Roman Catholicism. He held to the “Jesus only” doctrine of believer’s *BAPTISM, the notion that the candidate for *BAPTISM is baptized in the name of Jesus alone, not the Father or the Holy Spirit. Aberhart also arrogated to himself the title of “Apostle”; the Westbourne congregation was subsumed under the umbrella of the Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute Church and withdrew from its parent 1

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Abilene Christian University

denomination, the Baptist Union of Western Canada. In the throes of the Great Depression, Aberhart discovered the economic theories of C. H. Douglas, which blamed distant government and financial powers for economic hardship and advocated the idea of “Social Credit,” a kind of pump-priming scheme similar to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, to promote recovery. Aberhart took these ideas into the political arena, and in the 1935 elections, when the governing party, the United Farmers of Alberta, was plagued with scandal, Aberhart and his Social Credit Party prevailed, making Aberhart the province’s premier. The party won again five years later, but Aberhart died in office in 1943; the Social Credit Party, under the leadership of E. C. Manning, one of Aberhart’s Bible institute students, dominated Alberta’s provincial politics until 1971. References: William Aberhart, God’s Great Prophecies (1922); idem, An Introduction to the Study of Revelation (1924); idem, The Douglas System of Economics (1933); John G. Stackhouse Jr., s.v. “William Aberhart,” in Charles H. Lippy, ed., Twentieth-Century Shapers of American Popular Religion (1989).

Abilene Christian University (Abilene, Texas) Abilene Christian University was founded in 1906 when A. B. Barret, a graduate of Nashville Bible School, persuaded members of the local Church of Christ to sponsor a Bible school in Abilene, Texas. First known as Childers Classical Institute, the school was renamed Abilene Christian College

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six years later. By 1919, Abilene had become the first college in the Churches of Christ denomination to offer bachelor’s degrees. The college has been on its current campus since 1929. Like many church colleges, Abilene faced financial difficulties in its first few decades; during the Great Depression, for instance, faculty voluntarily returned half their salaries to the school to help balance its budget. In recent years, however, the school has prospered and now offers a wide range of graduate and undergraduate degrees, including graduate programs in divinity, biblical studies, journalism, business, public administration, and gerontology, among others. Abilene’s library holds several special collections: the Robbins Railroad Collection, Omar Burleson Archives, Herald of Truth Radio and Television Archives, and the Sewell Bible Library, which contains research materials on the Restoration. In conjunction with this latter collection, Abilene’s Center for Restoration Studies sponsors exhibits, lectures, and tours on church and Restoration history. Abolitionism From the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, approximately fifteen million Africans were forcibly removed to the Americas to work as slaves. The first organization to emerge in the abolitionist movement was the Abolition Society, founded in England in 1787 under the leadership of Thomas Clarkson and *W ILLIAM WILBERFORCE. The society succeeded in persuading Parliament in 1807 to abolish the slave trade with its colonies. When slavery itself persisted, the Anti-

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Abortion Slavery Society was founded in Britain in 1823 under the leadership of Thomas Fowell Buxton, a member of Parliament. In 1833, nearly four decades after France had outlawed slavery in its colonies, Parliament passed a law abolishing slavery in all British colonies. The debate over the abolition of slavery and the slave trade bitterly divided America’s evangelicals. Following the lead of such eighteenth-century opponents of slavery as John Woolman, a Quaker, several denominations in the early national period took stands against slaveholding. The most notorious statement came from the Methodists, who in the articles of their founding in 1784 tried to deny membership to slaveholders. The Methodists never enforced that provision, however, so it was left to individuals to work for the abolition of slavery. Although the slave trade was abolished in 1807, slavery itself continued in the South, in part because of the robust demand for cotton. Northern evangelicals, however, became especially exercised about the perpetuation of what they regarded as a barbaric practice, although the solutions they proposed ranged widely from outright abolition to gradual emancipation to the colonization of blacks to Liberia in Africa. The pressure intensified in 1831 when William Lloyd Garrison began publishing the Liberator, and the formation of the American Anti-Slavery Society two years later abetted new avenues of resistance, especially the Underground Railroad. As the chasm between North and South widened over the issue of slavery, Protestant denominations divided

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in anticipation of the Civil War. The *SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION was organized in 1845 after a split with Northerners over abolition; the Methodist Episcopal Church, South was formed the same year. Southern Presbyterians seceded from the larger Presbyterian denomination in 1861. Methodists reunited in 1939, and the Presbyterians in 1983. The Southern Baptists have never reunited with those in the North. Reference: C. C. Goen, Broken Churches, Broken Nation: Denominational Schisms and the Coming of the American Civil War (1985).

Abortion A controversial issue among Christians for centuries, abortion emerged in the 1970s as a major point of political and religious division. While the Roman Catholic hierarchy has been steadfast in its opposition to abortion, Protestants have generally (though not universally) followed suit. Paul Ramsey, a Methodist and an ethicist at Princeton University, consistently articulated a theological case against abortion, but some liberal Protestants equivocated, employing the language of privacy, individual conscience, and women’s rights. In the United States, the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which opened the way for legalized abortion, sharpened the issue. Initially, the response on the part of evangelicals was muted—the famously conservative *S OUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION, in fact, endorsed Roe v. Wade in 1973 and for several years thereafter as a landmark decision affirming the separation of

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Acadia University

church and state—but as the *RELIGIOUS RIGHT began to gather force later in the 1970s, abortion became a matter of religious debate. *PAUL WEYRICH, one of the architects of the *RELIGIOUS RIGHT, for example, insists that only in the late 1970s, after evangelical conservatives had cooperated on other political issues, was opposition to abortion added to the agenda. Sensing a political opportunity, *RONALD REAGAN, the Republican candidate for president in 1980 who, as governor of California, had signed a law legalizing abortion, proclaimed his opposition to abortion. That position helped him win the votes of politically conservative evangelicals in 1980 and again in 1984. The antiabortion movement (which generally prefers the moniker “prolife”) was most visible in the 1980s, and the activism took many forms, from blockades of abortion clinics to moves in Congress to outlaw abortion by constitutional amendment (something that Reagan had promised to push for in both of his campaigns). More liberal elements of the evangelical community generally concurred, although *SO JOURNERS magazine, for example, linked opposition to abortion to a wider “prolife” agenda, including opposition to capital punishment and help for the poor. Among many politically conservative evangelicals, opposition to abortion became a kind of litmus test for faith itself, and *RELIGIOUS RIGHT activists were so adamant that they succeeded in demanding that Republican politicians accede to their view in order to win their votes. The election of Bill Clinton to the presidency in 1992 effectively ended—

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or at least tabled—hopes for an outright legal ban on abortion, either through legislation or through the appointment of antiabortion jurists to the Supreme Court. Sensing that the issue was losing some of its potency, leaders of the *RELIGIOUS R IGHT, while not abandoning their stand on abortion, shifted their rhetoric in the 1990s to other issues, such as opposition to homosexuality. References: Dallas A. Blanchard, The AntiAbortion Movement and the Rise of the Religious Right: From Polite to Fiery Protest (1994); Cynthia Gorney, Articles of Faith: A Frontline History of the Abortion Wars (1998).

Acadia University (Wolfville, Nova Scotia) Acadia College was formed in 1838 in the aftermath of the *REVIVAL in the Maritimes, sometimes called the *CANADA FIRE, led by *HENRY ALLINE. Founded and supported by the Baptists of Nova Scotia, Acadia was not established solely for the training of ministers; instead, backers of the school believed that education should not be for the elites alone, but for the common people as well. Acadia University, which includes Acadia Divinity College, represents one of the many contributions of the dissenting tradition to higher education in Canada. Reference: Barry M. Moody “Breadth of Vision, Breadth of Mind: The Baptists of Acadia College,” in G. A. Rawlyk, ed., Canadian Baptists and Christian Higher Education (1988).

Accrediting Association of Bible Colleges. See Association for Biblical Higher Education.

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Adopting Act of 1729 Addams, Jane (1860–1935) Jane Addams’s mother died when she was three, so she was reared in Cedarville, Illinois, by her father, who was a successful miller, a Quaker, an eightterm Illinois state senator, and a friend of Abraham Lincoln. At seventeen, Addams entered the Rockford Female Seminary (now Rockford College) and later studied medicine at the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, although poor health forced her to curtail her medical studies. On the advice of doctors, she took two trips to Europe; after the first she returned to Cedarville and joined the Presbyterian Church. In the course of her second trip, which lasted from 1887 to 1889, Addams visited Toynbee Hall, an institution designed to meet the needs of London’s poor. When she returned to the United States, she moved to Chicago and, with her college friend Ellen Gates Starr, founded Hull-House in a shabby old mansion on Halstead Street in the city’s Nineteenth Ward, an area of tenements and sweatshops. Within months, Addams and Starr had transformed the building into a center of cultural activity and social outreach: a theater, a day nursery, a boys’ club, and a home for working girls. The success of the enterprise attracted support from private philanthropists, and it gave Addams public exposure as an advocate for the urban poor. She worked for legislation to improve the lot of urban laborers, and she became increasingly interested in issues surrounding women; she addressed prostitution and feminine psychology in her writings. Addams’s Twenty Years at Hull-

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House, published in 1910, earned her an international reputation. During World War I she helped to form the Women’s Peace Party and lobbied extensively in Europe for an end to hostilities. In 1920 Addams helped to organize the American Civil Liberties Union and was elected the first president of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Her efforts on behalf of the poor, for peace, and for women were recognized in 1931 when, with Nicholas Murray Butler, she was named recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. By the time of her death in 1935, Hull-House had expanded to cover an entire city block, with buildings centered around a courtyard. In 1961 plans were made to tear down HullHouse to make room for the Chicago campus of the University of Illinois. Despite worldwide protests against such plans, the properties were sold in 1963, although the original building was preserved as a memorial to Addams. Hull-House settlement work was relocated to other venues in Chicago. References: Jane Addams, Democracy and Social Ethics (1902); idem, Newer Ideals of Peace (1907); idem, The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets (1909); idem, Twenty Years at Hull-House (1910); idem, A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil (1911); idem, The Long Road of Women’s Memory (1916); idem, The Second Twenty Years at HullHouse (1930).

Adopting Act of 1729 The Adopting Act of 1729, drafted primarily by *JONATHAN DICKINSON, forged a compromise between the New England and

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Adoption

Scots-Irish factions of American Presbyterianism over the issue of subscription to the *WESTMINSTER STANDARDS. The *S UBSCRIPTION C ONTROVERSY , which reflected similar disputes back in Great Britain, pitted people who demanded strict adherence to Westminster against the “Puritan” faction, which wanted to allow for expressions of piety. The Adopting Act stitched the two sides together, at least until the *GREAT AWAKENING exposed the fissure yet again and divided Presbyterians into Old Lights and *NEW LIGHTS. Reference: Randall Balmer and John R. Fitzmier, The Presbyterians (1993).

Adoption Five references in the New Testament, all found in the writings of Paul, refer to the concept of adoption as it pertains to the new relationship between God and humanity through Jesus Christ. The Old Testament does not stipulate specific laws regarding adoption; in a number of cases, however, adoptions took place. In Genesis, Jacob takes two of Joseph’s sons as his own (Gen. 48:5). Also in Genesis, a type of adoption is suggested by the taking of a child between an adult’s knees, thereby demonstrating a family relationship henceforth (Gen. 48:12; 50:23). In Ruth, Naomi verbally adopts Ruth’s son (Ruth 4:16-17). Two clear examples of God’s adoption and the filial relationship deriving from it are the prophet Nathan’s conveying God’s will about David’s successor: “I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me” (2 Sam. 7:14). Again in Psalm 2:7, God states about his anointed king: “You are my son; today I have begotten you.”

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These examples, along with Roman law that was applicable during Paul’s lifetime, serve as the model for the concept of adoption in the New Testament. By adoption Christians are made “sons of God.” This familial relationship is very important in understanding how evangelicals understand their relationship to God and Jesus Christ. While Paul no doubt understood and modeled the concept of adoption upon his extensive knowledge of Old Testament scripture and Roman law, he develops a new spin on adoption in the New Testament. That spin, which has become central to evangelical understanding of the believer’s relationship with Jesus Christ, focuses upon a personal adoption by God through Jesus Christ. Thus, believers redeemed by Christ are all made “children of God.” As a child of God, the believer is no longer a slave literally, nor a slave to the material order of the universe. Believers are by adoption what Christ is by birthright, and as such, they become coinheritors along with Christ (Rom. 8:17) of God’s Kingdom and all that it implies. However, the process of adoption is not quite complete in the evangelical understanding until the final deliverance when the body will be freed completely from the material world and admitted into the world to come (Rom. 8:23). This understanding is one reason why evangelicals are focused upon the time of waiting with anticipation as well as focused on the eschaton, or the end of time, when the struggle to maintain a relationship with Christ by carrying out his commandments will be ended.

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Adventism Adoration This term describes a strong sense of worship, in evangelical practice directed appropriately only to God and Jesus Christ. Occasionally, especially in pentecostal circles, this worship is directed to the Holy Spirit as well, but often in a context together with the first two persons of the Holy Trinity. Adoration can also have a negative connotation, such as the idol worship that is repeatedly depicted throughout the *BIBLE as humans turning away from the true God. Evangelicals understand the proper use of adoration as “giving glory to God,” usually expressed in prayer or song or even in personal comportment. Thus, for adoration to be true worship and not fall into idolatry, all glory must be directed to God or to the Trinity. Advent Christian Church The Advent Christian Church is a denomination that traces its roots to the millennial prophecies of *WILLIAM MILLER, who predicted that Jesus would return to earth on October 22, 1844. After the *G REAT D ISAPPOINTMENT of the *M ILLERITE movement in 1844, the Adventists scattered in various directions. Many people went back to the churches from which they had come. Other *MILLERITES attempted to find the error that *WILLIAM MILLER must have made so that they could prepare more adequately for Jesus’ * SECOND COMING . One of the latter groups decided that Miller had been off in his calculations by ten years. Accordingly, they looked to 1854 for Jesus’ return. After this final disappointment some of this group pulled together to form the Advent Christian Church.

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One of the foundational beliefs of the Advent Christians is that of “Life Only in Jesus Christ.” According to this belief, immortality of the soul is conditional, applying only to those who qualify for it through faith in Christ. Furthermore, the Advent Christians believe that the soul remains in an unconscious state until the return of Christ and that the souls of the wicked become extinct rather than pass into eternal torment. Advent Christians also continue to maintain the *MILLERITE belief in the imminent return of Jesus Christ, though without Miller’s datesetting. The *POLITY of the churches is congregational, and the denomination has no formal creedal statements. The Advent Christian Church merged with the Life and Advent Union in 1964. Headquarters for the Advent Christian General Conference of America are in Charlotte, North Carolina. The denomination maintains two colleges, Aurora University in Aurora, Illinois, and Berkshire Christian College in Haverhill, Massachusetts. Approximately twenty thousand members are spread among 350 churches in the United States and Canada. The denomination joined the *NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF EVANGELICALS in 1987. Adventism While more liturgical traditions observe Advent, the season leading to Christmas and commemorating the advent of Jesus, evangelicals are more likely to be concerned about adventism, which denotes the * SECOND COMING of Jesus. Adventists, then, are people who look for the *SECOND COMING ; most adventists, moreover, are premillennialists, who believe that Jesus

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Africa Inland Mission

will return at any moment, before the *MILLENNIUM predicted in the book of Revelation. In a less generic sense of the word, adventism also refers to the *SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS, an evangelical denomination. Africa Inland Mission Founded in 1895 by *PETER CAMERON SCOTT, who died the following year, the Africa Inland Mission is an interdenominational missionary agency. From its early years the organization has emphasized to the mission field the importance of social issues. With offices in Bristol, England, the African Inland Mission operates as a faith mission, meaning that it does not engage in the solicitation of funds. African Methodist Episcopal Church. See Methodism. African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. See Methodism. Alaska Bible College (Glenallen, Alaska) Alaska Bible College began as a project of Central Alaska Missions, Inc., a missionary organization established by Vincent J. Joy. As early as 1957, Joy’s organization formed a Christian Education Committee, which allocated eighty acres of leased land for a new *BIBLE INSTITUTE. Alaska Bible College opened nine years later with twelve students and three teachers; the first commencement exercises took place in 1970. In 1971 Central Alaska Missions merged with SEND International, another evangelistic association. The *A CCREDITING ASSOCIATION OF BIBLE COLLEGES has accredited the col-

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lege since 1982. Alaska Bible College also has legal status with the state of Alaska, but no regional accreditation. Beginning in 1976, Alaska Bible College developed extension programs in Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau. Although Alaska Bible College’s curriculum now includes courses in math, psychology, and Western civilization, the overall structure is still that of a traditional Bible school. Every fouryear student completes a major in *BIBLE, choosing a second major from one of the following areas: pastoral, missions, Christian education, Christian camping, or integrated studies in ministry. The College also offers an Associate of Arts degree for students seeking basic training in ministry, as well as a certificate in *BIBLE and a non-degree program in Christian service ministries. All students are expected to do Christian fieldwork. They are also expected to complete work assignments in the dining hall, which helps keep down operating costs. Toward this end, College employees are also expected to make financial contributions. Faculty and staff are responsible for raising their own salaries. Alaska Bible College’s standards of conduct are fairly vague; students are asked to refrain from alcohol, drugs, tobacco, and “any other conduct that might adversely reflect on Christ.” The absence of language regarding *DANCING or entertainment, however, should not be taken as a sign of *LIBERALISM. “Recognizable Christian living” and “commitment to Biblical truth compatible with the Doctrinal Standard of the College” are two requirements for graduation. Furthermore, Alaska is

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Alexander unusually specific about its doctrinal positions, which suggest a very conservative theology. In the school’s “Doctrinal Standard,” Alaska states unequivocally that it is not a “Charismatic college.” In fact, students from charismatic traditions are required to sign a pledge promising not to propagate spiritual miracles, double election, or *SPEAKING IN TONGUES, which is considered especially outside the pale of “normative Christianity.” Students who disagree with these positions are encouraged to “seek their education at an institution of like mind.” Aldrich, Joseph C(offin) (1940–) An evangelical preacher and educator, Joseph C. Aldrich graduated from *MULTNOMAH S CHOOL OF THE BIBLE , Southern Oregon State College, and *D ALLAS T HEOLOGICAL S EMINARY , where he earned both the Master’s and the Th.D. degrees. After serving several pastorates, he succeeded his father, Willard Aldrich, as president of *MULTNOMAH S CHOOL OF THE BIBLE , in Portland, Oregon, in 1978. Under the direction of the younger Aldrich, Mult-nomah moved away from some of the more strident *FUNDAMENTALISM that characterized its past and toward a more inclusive, cooperative evangelicalism. Aldrich was active in other evangelistic organizations, including the Billy Graham School of Evangelism. Aldrich served as chair of the *B ILLY GRAHAM crusade in Portland held in September 1992. Poor health forced him to step down from the presidency at Multnomah, and Daniel R. Lockwood succeeded him in 1997.

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Alexander, Archibald (1772–1851) Archibald Alexander, arguably the progenitor of the *PRINCETON THEOLOGY, spent many of his early years as an itinerant minister in eastern Virginia. He was educated under the tutelage of William Graham, rector of Liberty Hall, and was ordained in the Presbyterian Church in 1794. In 1807, at the age of thirty-five, Alexander was elected moderator of the General Assembly, and during his address the following year he spoke of the need for a theological seminary. Following a term as president of Hampden-Sydney College and immediately preceding his appointment as professor of didactic and polemic theology at Princeton, he was pastor of the Pine Street Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. References: Archibald Alexander, A Brief Outline of the Evidences of the Christian Religion (1825); idem, Evidences of the Authenticity, Inspiration, and Canonical Authority of the Holy Scriptures (1826); idem, The Log College (1851); Mark A. Noll, ed., The Princeton Theology, 1812–1921 (1983).

Alexander, Joseph Addison (1809– 1860) The son of *A RCHIBALD ALEXANDER , the founder of Princeton Theological Seminary, Joseph Addison Alexander was a precocious child who learned to read the Old Testament in original Hebrew by the age of ten. An accomplished linguist, he graduated with highest honors from the College of New Jersey in 1826, where he later served as adjunct professor of languages and literature from 1830 until 1833. After study in Europe, Alexander became instructor (1834), associate

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Allen

professor (1838), then professor of oriental and biblical literature (1840– 1851) at Princeton Seminary. In 1851 he was named to the Chair of Biblical and Ecclesiastical History and finished his career as professor of Hellenistic and New Testament literature from 1859 until his death. Alexander’s many commentaries brought him renown in both the United States and Great Britain. He contributed frequently to the Biblical Repertory and served as one of its editors for many years. Allen, A(sa) A(lonzo) (1911–1970) Born into poverty in Sulphur Rock, Arkansas, A. A. Allen became an itinerant *EVANGELIST, an evangelical radio personality, and a publisher. Allen, who later characterized himself as “an ex-jailbird drifting aimlessly through life,” was converted from drunkenness and dissipation in a “tongues speaking” Methodist church in 1934. Shortly thereafter he became a licensed minister in the *ASSEMBLIES OF GOD. After a stint as pastor of a small church in Colorado, Allen forged a career— though not much of a living—as an itinerant revivalist for the *ASSEMBLIES OF G OD . In 1947 he accepted a more stable post as pastor of an Assembly of God in Corpus Christi, Texas. Though initially suspicious of the “healing * REVIVALS” taking place throughout the South, Allen drove to Dallas in 1949 to hear *ORAL ROBERTS and returned convinced that this activity was a work of God. When his congregation refused to support a radio program, however, Allen once again became an itinerant, this time with an

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emphasis on healing. Ever the showman, he purchased a large tent in 1951, set up headquarters in Dallas, and started a radio program, the Allen Revival Hour, in 1953. His message was both sensational and populist, articulating the concerns and frustrations of the destitute and the handicapped; his campaigns took him to Cuba and Mexico, and his radio broadcast was carried on stations throughout Latin America as well as in the United States. After an arrest for drunk driving in fall 1955, while he was conducting a crusade in Knoxville, Tennessee, Allen skipped bail rather than standing trial. The incident brought to the fore the persistent rumors of his drinking, even though Allen tried to portray himself as victim of an elaborate kidnapping scheme. Rather than face expulsion from the *VOICE OF HEALING, a loose organization of Assemblies’ healing evangelists, Allen, like *J IMMY SWAGGART several decades later, surrendered his ministerial credentials and became independent. He also became increasingly paranoid, attacking his critics as atheists, communists, and unsympathetic to *REVIVALS. Stung by the criticism of other pentecostals, Allen even tried to set up a kind of denomination, Miracle Revival Fellowship, for clergy and laity. His publication, Miracle Magazine, which had a circulation of two hundred thousand in 1956, also provided a means of communication outside of denominational conduits. In 1958 Allen established Miracle Valley, a permanent headquarters and training center, near Bisbee, Arizona.

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Alliance University College There he developed some of the ideas linking physical and financial wellbeing that became part of the pentecostal “faith movement” a decade later. In 1967 he divorced his wife of more than thirty years, and three years later he died alone in a San Francisco motel room. References: A. A. Allen, My Cross (1957); David Edwin Harrell Jr., All Things Are Possible: The Healing and Charismatic Revivals in Modern America (1975).

Allen, Richard (1760–1831) Born into slavery, Richard Allen grew up on a plantation near Dover, Delaware, and was converted in 1777. He began preaching in local Methodist churches and on the plantation, where his owner became one of Allen’s early converts. Allen was allowed to purchase his freedom, whereupon he became a protégé of *F RANCIS A SBURY, preaching on Methodist circuits in the mid-Atlantic region and supporting himself with odd jobs. In 1786 Allen joined St. George’s Methodist Church in his native Philadelphia, a predominantly white congregation. The prayer and Bible study sessions Allen offered attracted other blacks to the church, but their presence kindled resentment among white congregants and led to a segregated seating arrangement for worship services, with blacks consigned to the gallery. Offended, Allen and Absalom Jones led a contingent of African-Americans out of St. George’s to form the Free African Society. Allen then set on a determined course for distinctive black religious

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identity. He organized his followers in 1784 as the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, with *F RANCIS ASBURY’s blessing. St. George’s, however, resisted Allen’s efforts at independence; a court ruling finally allowed for the formation of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in April 1816. References: Richard Allen, The Life, Experience, and Gospel Labors of the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen (1793); Carol V. R. George, Segregated Sabbaths: Richard Allen and the Emergence of Independent Black Churches, 1760–1840 (1973).

Alliance Defense Fund An organization associated with the *R ELIGIOUS RIGHT, the Alliance Defense Fund is a legal defense fund that was created in 1994 to counteract the influence of the American Civil Liberties Union on matters of religious freedom. *DON W ILDMON of the *AMERICAN F AMILY ASSOCIATION, *BILL BRIGHT of *CAMPUS CRUSADE FOR CHRIST *D. J AMES KENNEDY of Coral Ridge Ministries, *JAMES DOBSON of *FOCUS ON THE FAMILY, and *LARRY BURKETT of *CHRISTIAN FINANCIAL CONCEPTS were its founders. Alliance Theological Seminary (Nyack, New York). See Nyack College and Alliance Theological Seminary. Alliance University College (Calgary, Alberta) Alliance University College, affiliated with the *CHRISTIAN AND MISSIONARY ALLIANCE, was founded as Canadian Bible Institute in Regina, Saskatchewan, in the fall of 1941. Its first home was the Alliance Tabernacle,

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Alline

and the school occupied a refurbished hotel in downtown Regina beginning in 1945. Eleven years later the school moved to a new campus in northwest Regina. The school changed its name to Canadian Bible College in 1961, when it was accredited by the *ACCREDITING ASSOCIATION OF BIBLE COLLEGES. The school expanded with a seminary program in 1970, and Canadian Theological Seminary was accredited by the Association of Theological Schools in 1989. Canadian Bible College added a program in arts and sciences in 1997. In 2000 the board of governors elected to relocate the school to Calgary, Alberta, a moved that took place in the summer of 2003. In February 2004, coincident with the approval of the provincial government to offer the Bachelor of Arts degree, the school changed its name to Alliance University College. Canadian Bible College still refers to the undergraduate school of ministry, and Canadian Theological Seminary offers graduate programs in ministry and spiritual formation under the broader rubric of Alliance University College. Alline, Henry (1748–1784) Sometimes called “the Whitefield of Nova Scotia,” after the famous revivalist *GEORGE W HITEFIELD, Henry Alline was born in Newport, Rhode Island, and moved with his parents to Falmouth, Nova Scotia, at the age of twelve. In 1775, after many years of spiritual seeking, Alline had a dramatic and emotional * CONVERSION experience, one with arguably mystical overtones. He began preaching throughout the Maritime Provinces and found es-

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pecially receptive audiences in rural Nova Scotia. While Alline, a Baptist, urged on his audiences the importance of evangelical regeneration, his preaching also had the effect of reinforcing sentiments of political neutrality among Nova Scotians during the American Revolution. Alline’s fervent piety lent itself to the writing of music (a volume called Hymns and Spiritual Songs was published posthumously), and his revival successes in the Maritimes emboldened him to make forays into New England. He died of tuberculosis in 1784, shortly after undertaking a preaching tour to New Hampshire. References: G. A. Rawlyk, Ravished by the Spirit: Religious Revivals, Baptists, and Henry Alline (1984); idem, The Canada Fire: Radical Evangelicalism in British North America, 1775–1812 (1994).

Alma White College. See White, Alma. Almira College. See Greenville College. Alpha An evangelical renewal movement, Alpha began in 1977 at a Church of England parish, Holy Trinity, Brampton. Nicky Gumbel and other leaders in the congregation sought to devise a program that would provide spiritual nurture for their parishioners. The Alpha course produced remarkable results in Brampton, an evangelical, charismatic congregation. Beginning in 1993, designers of the Alpha materials made them available to other churches throughout Great Britain, then to the Continent, to North

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Alston America, and eventually around the world. Approximately half a million people attended Alpha courses in 1997, led by people who have taken a two-day intensive training course. The ten-week Alpha curriculum places a strong emphasis on *EVANGELISM and on the charismatic gifts. Aside from its obvious connotations referring to the deity , the name Alpha also represents an acronym: A=anyone interested in learning more about Christianity; L=learning and laughter; P=pasta (eating together is emphasized as a community-building activity); H=helping one another; A= ask anything. Reference: Timothy C. Morgan, “The Alpha-Brits Are Coming,” Christianity Today, February 9, 1998.

Alston, William P(ayne) (1921–) Born in Shreveport, Louisiana, William P. Alston grew up in *METHODISM, although he later changed his denominational affiliation to Episcopal. He earned the bachelor’s degree from Centenary College in 1942 and the Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1951. A philosopher of religion, he taught at the University of Illinois at Champaign–Urbana, Rutgers University, and the University of Michigan before becoming a professor of philosophy at Syracuse University. Alston has held various research fellowships and has served as president of various philosophical societies, including the *SOCIETY OF CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHERS, from 1978 until 1981.

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Alston has played a significant role in the renewal among professional philosophers of academic interest in Christian belief. In the 1970s, he moved from a nominal religious life to a more genuine Christian faith (as he recounted in a 1994 essay entitled “A Philosopher’s Way Back to the Faith”). As a consequence of this “*CONVERSION” in 1978, Alston helped conceive and was elected the first president of the *SOCIETY OF CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHERS; his reputation as a first-class philosopher of language was one of several factors that gave early credibility and momentum to the Society. In 1982 he became editor of *FAITH AND PHILOSOPHY, a journal published by the Society, and served in that capacity until 1990. Alston’s philosophical interests include the rationality of religious belief, issues between realism and antirealism, and the philosophy of religious language. Much of his speaking and publishing has been on the epistemology of religious experience (how we know), and he is widely known for defending a position that identifies parallels between sense perception and religious experience, arguing that the ways in which we form beliefs about God bear important similarities to the ways in which we form beliefs about external sensory objects. This position refutes critics who dismiss religious belief as falling outside our normal epistemological processes. References: William P. Alston, Philosophy of Language (1964); idem, Epistemic Justification (1989); idem, Divine Nature and Human Language (1993); idem, The Reliability of Sense Perception (1993).

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Altar Call

Altar Call For most evangelicals the term “altar call” is a misnomer in that their churches have no physical altar. Most evangelicals subscribe to a “memorialist” interpretation of the *LORD’S SUPPER, which insists that the bread and wine of *HOLY C OMMUNION merely represent the body and blood of Christ; they are not changed, as in the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, into the actual body and blood of Christ. For that reason, an altar call, which is generally an invitation by the preacher to step toward the pulpit for *CONVERSION, * BAPTISM, or church membership, is really an invitation to a spiritual rather than a physical location. Throughout American history various * EVANGELISTS have had signature altar calls. *BILLY SUNDAY, for instance, would invite—more often, taunt—his auditors to “hit the *SAWDUST TRAIL ” and shake the preacher’s hand as an indication of their intention to give their lives to Jesus (the term came from the practice of sprinkling sawdust on the aisles during tent meetings). *B ILLY GRAHAM had his choir sing verse after verse of “Just As I Am,” sometimes pausing between verses while he issued yet another plea for people to come forward and “make a decision for Christ.” Not all evangelical services culminate in an altar call. Some preachers use it only on occasion, when they sense a special moving of the Holy Spirit. Among other groups, however, notably the Southern Baptists, altar calls at the conclusion of services are so customary that they might qualify as a ritual. Amazing Grace Mission. See Farmers for Christ International.

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American Association of Bible Colleges. See Accrediting Association of Bible Colleges. American Association of Christian Schools Founded in 1972, the American Association of Christian Schools claims more than one thousand affiliated schools in the United States, reaching a student population of approximately one hundred and fifty thousand. With strong associations with such *RELIGIOUS RIGHT organizations as the *FAMILY R ESEARCH COUNCIL , its stated purpose is “to aid in promoting, establishing, advancing, and developing Christian schools and Christian education in America.” Its headquarters are in Independence, Missouri, with an additional office in Washington, D.C. American Baptist Churches in the USA The history of Baptists in America dates back to the founding of the First Baptist Church in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1638. Baptist ideals and churches continued to spread through much of the colonies, and the first association of Baptist churches, the Philadelphia Baptist Association, was formed in 1707. The two principles of the autonomy of congregations and of voluntary association have guided much of the life, work, and growth of the Baptist churches in America. The number of Baptists began to grow significantly after the American Revolution, due in large measure to the *S ECOND GREAT AWAKENING. By the early nineteenth century, considerable disagreement had arisen among the Baptists concerning the role and pro-

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American Baptist Churches priety of establishing mission work in the United States and other countries. Baptists had originally come out of the *SEPARATIST Puritan/Reformed tradition, with its grounding in *CALVINISM, including the doctrine of election. Most felt that, according to the Reformed teaching of that day, it was inappropriate to send out missionaries. The Calvinist doctrines of predestination and election meant that it was not in the power or purview of Christians to extend the * GOSPEL to new places other than by the migration of believers. The quarrel came to a head in 1814. *ADONIRAM JUDSON, along with his wife, *ANN, and *LUTHER RICE, had been sent to India by the Congregational churches of Massachusetts to establish a mission in South Asia. On the ocean voyage, however, Judson and his party became convinced of Baptist doctrines and announced upon arrival in India that they were Baptists, whereupon they sent word of their change of heart and mind back to the United States. Rice returned to try to raise support for this mission work among the Baptists; Judson moved the site of his work to Burma. Without ever meaning to do it, American Baptists had taken their first step into missionary endeavor. Rice’s efforts led to the founding of the General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States of America for Foreign Missions, later known as the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society. This group met every three years and was known popularly as the *T RIENNIAL CONVENTION. In 1824 the American Baptist Home Mission Society was es-

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tablished, and the American Baptist Tract and Publication Society was formed in 1832. These three societies formed the nucleus of what would become the American Baptist Churches in the USA (ABCUSA) and the *S OUTHERN B APTIST CONVENTION . When the societies refused to appoint unmarried women as missionaries, American Baptist women formed their own foreign and home mission societies in the 1870s. By the 1840s the issue of slavery had begun to undermine the unity of the societies. When both the foreign and home mission societies refused to appoint slaveholders as missionaries, the Baptist churches in the South withdrew to form their own societies. These churches established a much more centralized form of government and became the *SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION. The three original societies continued their work until 1907, when the various appeals for funds had become confusing and unsatisfactory. The Northern Baptist Convention was formed to coordinate the efforts of the three societies, which became cooperating organizations of the convention. The convention reorganized in 1950 and changed the name to the American Baptist Convention. Another reorganization in 1972 led to the final name change