Evangelical History and Mediating NARRATIVES, part 1 Soong-Chan Rah Milton B. Engebretson Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism North Park Theological Seminary

Doctrine of Discovery 1450’s to PORTUGAL King Alfonso Prince Henry (the Navigator) Zurara’s Tears and the Atlantic Slave Trade 1490’s to SPAIN Ferdinand and Isabella Christopher Columbus “Discovers” America

The MYTH of the Anglo-SAxon Tacitus, Germania “a distinct unmixed race. . . with fierce blue eyes, red hair, huge frames” “peculiar respect for individual rights and an almost ‘instinctive love for freedom” Puritan embracing the Anglo-Saxon narrative “City set on a Hill” Manifest Destiny from Sea to Shining Sea

Western Christianity “Over the past five centuries or so, the story of Christianity has been inextricably bound up with that of Europe and . . . North America. Until recently, the overwhelming majority of Christians have lived in White nations, allowing theorists to speak of a . . . ‘European Christian’ civilization.” The Next Christendom Philip Jenkins

Evangelicalism and Modernity "Evangelicalism shares close ties with modernity. A child of the Reformation, pietism, and revivalism, the evangelical movement was born in the early modern period. And North American evangelicalism reached maturity in the mid-twentieth century -- at the height of the modern era.“ "Twentieth-century evangelicals have devoted much energy to the task of demonstrating the credibility of the Christian faith to a culture that glorifies reason and deifies science." Stanley Grenz, p. 161

G.W.F. Hegel Hegelian Dialectic The Absolute Idea The March of Reason Thesis  Antithesis  Synthesis (Thesis) and so forth (all over again) The Absolute Idea Reason shapes history The March of Reason Progress is good and inevitable