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Theological liberals gradually assumed control of Congregationalism, leaving evangelicals with only the smaller churches and schools. And growing numbers of Baptist and Presbyterian evangelicals drifted into the newer and poorer institutions of the Keswick holiness movement and the dispensational prophecy movement. Dwight L. Moody helped fuse these two movements, and together they formed the backbone of the fundamentalism that would emerge in the 1920s.

In retrospect it is clear that, after the turn of the century, wealth and cultural respectability followed the theological liberals and their allies. Alarmed by this, evangelicals formed coalitions in the 1920s to try to expel the liberals from several northern denominations. But by this time they were politically too weak to succeed.

In the end, most northern evangelicals chose one of two options. Some abandoned the well-established denominations for fledgling new denominations. Others remained in the old denominations but focused their energies on building a separate network of independent Bible institutes, missionary agencies, and evangelistic organizations. Either move required giving up paid-for buildings, established fundraising networks, and access to most of America's wealthy businessmen and large foundations.

Their timing could not have been worse. Just as evangelicals took up the task of building new denominations and new independent institutions, the Great Depression struck down the economy. Evangelicals of all kinds—independent, fundamentalist, holiness, Pentecostal, and African-American—had very little old wealth to fall back on. So they scraped by on small donations and perseverance. Wheaton College, for example, relied on small donations for 30 percent of its annual budget, as compared to 5 percent for other colleges in the Midwest. Over 80 percent of Wheaton's students worked their way through school, compared to the national average of 50 percent.

Evangelical poverty changed its social patterns. Northern evangelicals from the middle classes, the working classes, and the farms began going to church with each other. In its earliest years, Pentecostalism even managed to break down the color barrier, as blacks and whites worshiped together. The theological commitments of evangelicalism tended to repel the wealthy, but they were strong enough to weaken the class divisions that had separated other churchgoers in the 19th century. In giving up much of its wealth, evangelicalism found itself drawing together a broader range of social classes than did the established denominations.

By the late 1930s, all northern sectors of white evangelicalism that had formerly shared in the Protestant prosperity—the holiness movement, restorationists, Pentecostals, and finally fundamentalists—moved down the prosperity ladder. They became poor for the sake of the gospel as they understood it. Class divisions softened, and northern white evangelicals now stood closer to their southern and African-American brothers and sisters. All sectors of evangelicalism were, compared to mainline Protestants, financially pinched and culturally despised. In the words of the Apostle Paul, not many were "wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth."

There's a curious thing about the way most historians describe evangelicalism in the 20th century. They usually talk about evangelicals' opposition to modernism. Or their attempts to re-establish America as a "Christian nation." Or their efforts to regain cultural influence and respect. Or their propagation of distinctive doctrines like entire sanctification, speaking in tongues, dispensationalism, inerrancy, creationism, pacifism, or primitivism. And all of this is true—as far as it goes.

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June 12 2000, Vol. 44, No. 7