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In April 7, 1942, Harold John Ockenga stood to address the 150 delegates who had assembled at the Hotel Coronado in St. Louis, Missouri, to launch the National Association of Evangelicals for United Action (NAE). "Gentlemen," observed the dashing young pastor from Park Street Church in Boston, "we are gathered here today to consider momentous questions" and perhaps to even "arrive at decisions" that "will affect the whole future course of evangelical Christianity in America."

"Evangelical Christianity has suffered nothing but a series of defeats for decades," Ockenga lamented. The "terrible octopus of liberalism" had "spread itself throughout our Protestant Church, dominating innumerable organizations, pulpits, and publications, as well as seminaries and other schools." The "poison" of "materialism" is "spoiling the testimony and message of the majority of our young preachers today." The "floods of iniquity" are pouring over America "in a tidal wave of drunkenness, immorality, corruption, dishonesty, and utter atheism."

Look around you, Ockenga suggested to the delegates. What you will see are Christians who are "defeated, reticent, retiring and seemingly in despair." If ever evangelicals needed "some organ to speak for the evangelical interests, to represent men who, like myself, are 'lone wolves' in the church," it is certainly today. But such defeat and despair, he assured the delegates, were no longer necessary. "Can such an organization" as they had been discussing "be launched here which will be the vanguard of the movement? I answer unqualifiedly, it can."

"Are we in earnest?" he asked. "Are we teachable? … Are we clean? … Are we willing to dissolve any organizational connection which we may have in order that we, as a group, may adequately represent evangelical Christianity to this nation? If we are," he concluded, then "the day has dawned and the hour has struck inaugurating a new era in evangelical Christianity."

For many of the weary warriors of the bitter fundamentalist-modernist battles, Ockenga's challenge must have come as a breath of fresh air. Rather than a continuation of the fundamentalists' strategy of withdrawal, here was a challenge to reengage the culture and its institutions. Instead of retreat, here was a call to advance the gospel throughout the world. In place of discouragement and fear, here was a new hope for spiritual power and refreshment. Rather than endless argumentation and division, here at last was the possibility of united evangelical action.

Ockenga's stirring address became a kind of manifesto for the resurgent evangelicalism that came to dominate much of 20th-century religious life. Rooted in the rich soil of the 18th-century evangelical awakenings, this "New Evangelicalism," as Ockenga later called it, sought to join together Christians of many denominations in the spread of biblical Christianity throughout the world. United by a shared authority (the Bible), a shared experience (conversion), a shared conviction (that salvation is to be found only in the atoning work of Christ), and a shared mission (worldwide evangelization), these New Evangelicals set out to recapture the culture for Christ.

By the time Ockenga's address at the Hotel Coronado had ended, it was apparent to virtually everyone in the room that the evangelical movement had found a new leader. His election as the first president of the NAE thrust him almost immediately into national prominence. During the 13 months between the St. Louis Convention in April 1942 and the Chicago Constitutional Convention in May 1943, Ockenga traveled thousands of miles, crisscrossed the country, and carried on an extensive correspondence on behalf of the fledgling organization. He remained until his death in 1985 one of the most recognized leaders of a burgeoning and increasingly worldwide movement.

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