History of Evangelical Christianity

This unit explores the history of evangelical Christianity, from its precursors in seventeenth-century continental pietism and puritanism, through its rise in the eighteenth-century transatlantic revivals, expansion in the nineteenth-century and global spread in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Despite the challenge of defining a movement marked by so much diversity, we will nonetheless observe that evangelicalism possesses an essential unity: a movement with an inter and trans-denominational flavour, theologically committed to a largely Protestant conception of the gospel, and shaped ecclesiologically by the religious revivals that swept the transatlantic world in the eighteenth-century.

Through a close reading of primary sources, we will observe the way evangelicals have always been highly adaptable to the often dynamic circumstances in which they find themselves. This unit is therefore important in helping students prepare to serve God in a rapidly evolving world.