Evangelicalism

===19th century===

The start of the 19th century saw an increase in [[missionary]] work and many of the major missionary societies were founded around this time (see [[Timeline of Christian missions]]). Both the Evangelical and [[high church]] movements sponsored missionaries.

The [[Second Great Awakening]] (which actually began in 1790) was primarily an American revivalist movement and resulted in substantial growth of the Methodist and Baptist churches. [[Charles Grandison Finney]] was an important preacher of this period.

[[File:Wilberforce john rising.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|[[William Wilberforce]] was a politician, philanthropist and an evangelical Anglican, who led the British movement to [[Abolitionism in the United Kingdom|abolish the slave trade]].]]

In Britain in addition to stressing the traditional Wesleyan combination of "Bible, cross, conversion, and activism", the revivalist movement sought a universal appeal, hoping to include rich and poor, urban and rural, and men and women. Special efforts were made to attract children and to generate literature to spread the revivalist message.<ref>{{Citation |last=Bebbington |first=David W |title=The Evangelical Revival in Britain in the Nineteenth Century |date=Jan 2002 |work=Kyrkohistorisk Arsskrift |pages=63–70}}.</ref>

"Christian conscience" was used by the British Evangelical movement to promote social activism. Evangelicals believed activism in government and the social sphere was an essential method in reaching the goal of eliminating sin in a world drenched in wickedness.<ref>{{Citation |last=Bebbington |first=David W |title=The Evangelical Conscience |work=Welsh Journal of Religious History |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=27–44 |year=2007}}.</ref> The Evangelicals in the [[Clapham Sect]] included figures such as [[William Wilberforce]] who successfully campaigned for the abolition of slavery.

In the late 19th century, the revivalist [[Holiness movement|Wesleyan-Holiness movement]] based on [[John Wesley]]'s doctrine of "[[entire sanctification]]" came to the forefront, and while many adherents remained within mainline Methodism, others established new denominations, such as the [[Free Methodist Church]] and [[Wesleyan Methodist Church (United States)|Wesleyan Methodist Church]].<ref name="Winn">{{cite book |last1=Winn |first1=Christian T. Collins |title=From the Margins: A Celebration of the Theological Work of Donald W. Dayton |date=2007 |publisher=Wipf and Stock Publishers |isbn=9781630878320 |page=115 |language=en|quote=In addition to these separate denominational groupings, one needs to give attention to the large pockets of the Holiness movement that have remained within the United Methodist Church. The most influential of these would be the circles dominated by Asbury College and Asbury Theological Seminary (both in Wilmore, KY), but one could speak of other colleges, innumerable local campmeetings, the vestiges of various local Holiness associations, independent Holiness oriented missionary societies and the like that have had great impact within United Methodism. A similar pattern would exist in England with the role of Cliff College within Methodism in that context.}}</ref> In urban Britain the Holiness message was less exclusive and censorious.<ref>{{Citation |last=Bebbington |first=David W |title=The Holiness Movements in British and Canadian Methodism in the Late Nineteenth Century |work=Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society |volume=50 |issue=6 |pages=203–28 |year=1996}}</ref>

[[Keswickianism]] taught the doctrine of the [[second work of grace|second blessing]] in non-Methodist circles and came to influence evangelicals of the Calvinistic (Reformed) tradition, leading to the establishment of denominations such as the [[Christian and Missionary Alliance]].<ref name="Sawyer2004">{{cite web |last1=Sawyer |first1=M. J. |title=Wesleyan and Keswick Models of Sanctification |url=https://bible.org/article/wesleyan-amp-keswick-models-sanctification |publisher=Bible.org |access-date=September 30, 2020 |language=en |date=May 25, 2004 |quote=With Keswick one finds a different situation than with the Holiness Movement. Whereas Wesleyan holiness theology is traceable directly to Wesley and has clearly identifiable tenets, Keswick is much more amorphous and comes in many varieties from the strict Keswick of a Major Ian Thomas, John Hunter, Alan Redpath and the Torchbearers fellowship to the milder Keswick of Campus Crusade For Christ and Moody Bible Institute and other respected Evangelical educational institutions. Whereas Holiness theology has tended to dominate in Arminian circles, Keswick has tended to dominate American Evangelicalism of a more Calvinistic bent. Indeed Packer asserts that it has become standard in virtually all of Evangelicalism except confessional Reformed and Lutheran.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Hayford |first1=Jack W. |last2=Moore |first2=S. David |title=The Charismatic Century: The Enduring Impact of the Azusa Street Revival |date=June 27, 2009 |publisher=FaithWords |isbn=978-0-446-56235-5 |language=en |quote=Evangelist D.L. Moody was a proponent of the Kewsick movement along with others, including Hannah Whital Smith, whose book ''A Christian's Secret of a Happy Life'' is still read today by thousands. R.A. Torrey, an associate of Moody whose influence was rapidly increasing, championed Keswick's ideals and utilized the term "Baptism of the Holy Spirit" in reference to the experience. Keswick views had a significant inflience on A.B. Simpson, founder of the Christian Missionary Alliance, which became a denomination by that name.}}</ref>

[[John Nelson Darby]] of the Plymouth Brethren was a 19th-century Irish Anglican minister who devised modern [[dispensationalism]], an innovative Protestant theological interpretation of the Bible that was incorporated in the development of modern Evangelicalism. [[Cyrus Scofield]] further promoted the influence of dispensationalism through the explanatory notes to his [[Scofield Reference Bible]]. According to scholar Mark S. Sweetnam, who takes a cultural studies perspective, dispensationalism can be defined in terms of its Evangelicalism, its insistence on the literal interpretation of Scripture, its recognition of stages in God's dealings with humanity, its expectation of the imminent return of Christ to rapture His saints, and its focus on both apocalypticism and [[premillennialism]].<ref>{{Citation |last=Sweetnam |first=Mark S |title=Defining Dispensationalism: A Cultural Studies Perspective |journal=Journal of Religious History |volume=34 |issue=2 |pages=191–212 |year=2010 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-9809.2010.00862.x}}.</ref>

During the 19th century, the [[megachurch]]es, churches with more than 2,000 people, began to develop.<ref>Anne C. Loveland, Otis B. Wheeler, '' From Meetinghouse to Megachurch: A Material and Cultural History'', University of Missouri Press, USA, 2003, p. 35</ref> The first evangelical megachurch, the [[Metropolitan Tabernacle]] with a 6000-seat auditorium, was inaugurated in 1861 in [[London]] by [[Charles Spurgeon]].<ref>Stephen J. Hunt, ''Handbook of Megachurches'', Brill, Leyde, 2019, p. 50</ref> [[Dwight L. Moody]] founded the [[Illinois Street Church]] in Chicago.<ref>{{Citation |last=Bebbington |first=David W |title=Dominance of Evangelicalism: The Age of Spurgeon and Moody |year=2005}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Findlay |first=James F |title=Dwight L. Moody: American Evangelist, 1837–1899 |year=1969}}.</ref>

An advanced theological perspective came from the [[Princeton theology|Princeton theologians]] from the 1850s to the 1920s, such as [[Charles Hodge]], [[Archibald Alexander]] and [[Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield|B.B. Warfield]].<ref>{{Citation |last=Hoffecker |first=W. Andrew |title=Piety and the Princeton Theologians |year=1981 |place=Nutley |publisher=Presbyterian & Reformed}}, v.</ref>