Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T12:35:23.420Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Christianity Today, J. Howard Pew, and the Business of Conservative Evangelicalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 March 2014

Darren E. Grem
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Founded in 1956 by Billy Graham, L. Nelson Bell, and a cadre of evangelical theologians and business leaders, Christianity Today (CT) was—and still is—the world’s foremost Christian periodical. From the late 1950s through the early 1970s, CT’s editors also branded it as a new vehicle for conservative discourse and public assertiveness, especially regarding the relationship of the state to church, business, and society. Given CT’s theological and political stances, it garnered financial support and institutional direction from oil executive J. Howard Pew. This essay examines Pew’s contributions as a way of understanding the crucial role played by business elites in the construction of American conservative evangelicalism. Moreover, through a case study of CT, this essay re-periodizes the origins of corporate-evangelical alliances to the early twentieth century and evaluates the relative successes and failures of conservatives in postwar evangelicalism, state policy, and cultural politics.

Type
Articles
Information
Enterprise & Society , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , June 2014 , pp. 337 - 379
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2014. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bibliography of Works Cited

Books

Adams, Douglas Carl. Selling the Old Time Religion: American Fundamentalists and Mass Culture, 1920–1940. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Bebbington, David W. Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s. London: Unwin Hyman, 1989.Google Scholar
Bowler, Kate. Blessed: A History of the Prosperity Gospel. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Bruns, Robert. Billy Graham: A Biography. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2003.Google Scholar
Carpenter, Joel. Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Chappell, David L. A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Coffman, Elesha. The Christian Century and the Rise of Mainline Protestantism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Courtwright, David T. No Right Turn: Conservative Politics in a Liberal America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Critchlow, Donald. The Conservative Ascendancy: How the GOP Right Made Political History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Crespino, Joseph. In Search of Another Country: Mississippi and the Conservative Counterrevolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Dochuk, Darren. From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism. New York: W.W. Norton, 2011.Google Scholar
Dorsett, Lyle W. Billy Sunday and the Redemption of Urban America. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1991.Google Scholar
Evensen, Bruce J.God’s Man for the Gilded Age: D.L. Moody and the Rise of Mass Evangelism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Flippen, J. Brooks. Jimmy Carter, the Politics of Family, and the Rise of the Religious Right. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Fones-Wolf, Elizabeth. Selling Free Enterprise: The Business Assault on Labor and Liberalism, 1945–1960. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Frady, Marshall. Billy Graham: A Parable of American Righteousness. New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 1979.Google Scholar
Gunn, T. Jeremy. Spiritual Weapons: The Cold War and the Forging of an American National Religion. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2009.Google Scholar
Henry, Carl F. H. Confessions of a Theologian: An Autobiography. Waco, TX: Word Books, 1986.Google Scholar
Herzog, Jonathan P. The Spiritual-Industrial Complex: America’s Religious Battle Against Communism in the Early Cold War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Hollinger, David A.After Cloven Tongues of Fire: Protestant Liberalism in Modern American History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Inboden, William. III Religion and American Foreign Policy, 1945–1960: The Soul of Containment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Joiner, Thekla Ellen. Sin in the City: Chicago and Revivalism, 1880–1920. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Lichtman, Allan J.White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Lienesch, Michael. Redeeming America: Piety and Politics in the New Christian Right. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Lindsay, D. Michael. Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Lippy, Charles. Do Real Men Pray?: Images of the Christian Man and Male Spirituality in White Protestant America. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Long, Kathryn Teresa. The Revival of 1857–58: Interpreting an American Religious Awakening. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Marsden, George. Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm B. Eerdmans, 1991.Google Scholar
Martin, William. A Prophet With Honor. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1991.Google Scholar
McGirr, Lisa. Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Miller, Steven P. Billy Graham and the Rise of the Republican South. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Moreton, Bethany. To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Nash, Laura L. Believers in Business. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1994.Google Scholar
Nimmo, Dan D. Newsome, Chevelle, eds. Political Commentators in the United States in the 20th Century: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1997.Google Scholar
Phillips-Fein, Kim. Invisible Hands: The Businessmen’s Crusade Against the New Deal. New York: W.W. Norton, 2010.Google Scholar
Phillips-Fein, Kim Zelizer, Julian, eds. What’s Good for Business: Business and American Politics Since World War II. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Pollack, John Charles. Billy Graham, Evangelist to the World. New York: Harper & Row, 1979.Google Scholar
Porterfield, Amanda. Conceived in Doubt: Religion and Politics in the New American Nation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Preston, Andrew. Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy. New York: Knopf, 2012.Google Scholar
Schulman, Bruce Zelizer, Julian E., eds. Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Schultz, Kevin. Tri-Faith America: How Catholics and Jews Held Americans to Its Protestant Promise. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Sehat, David. The Myth of American Religious Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Sennholz, Mary. Faith and Freedom: A Biographical Sketch of a Great American, John Howard Pew. Grove City, PA: Grove City College, 1975.Google Scholar
Smillie, Dirk. Falwell, Inc.: Inside a Religious, Political, Educational, and Business Empire. New York: St. Martins, 2008.Google Scholar
Solomon, Lewis. Evangelical Christian Executives: A New Model for Business Corporations. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2004.Google Scholar
Stevens, Jason W. God-Fearing and Free: A Spiritual History of America’s Cold War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Stowe, David W. No Sympathy for the Devil: Christian Pop Music and the Transformation of American Evangelicalism. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Sutton, Matthew Avery. Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Turner, John G.Bill Bright and Campus Crusade for Christ: The Renewal of Evangelicalism in Postwar America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Williams, Daniel K. God’s Own Party: The Making of the Christian Right. New York, Oxford University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Winters, Michael Sean. God’s Right Hand: How Jerry Falwell Made God a Republican and Baptized the American Right. New York: HarperOne, 2012.Google Scholar
Wolfskill, George. The Revolt of the Conservatives: A History of the American Liberty League, 1934–1940. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1962.Google Scholar

Articles and Essays

Alsdurf, Phyllis E. “Evangelicalism and the Presidential Election of 1960: The ‘Catholic Question’ in Christianity Today Magazine.” In Religion, Media, and the Marketplace, edited by Clark, Lynn Schofield, 171–97. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Butler, Jon. “Jack-in-the-Box Faith: The Religion Problem in Modern American History.” Journal of American History 90, no. 4 (March 2004): 1357–78.Google Scholar
Dochuk, Darren. “Moving Mountains: The Business of Evangelicalism and Extraction in a Liberal Age.” In What’s Good for Business: Business and American Politics Since World War II, edited by Phillips-Fein, Kim Zelizer, Julian E., 72–90. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Dochuk, Darren. “Blessed by Oil, Cursed by Crude: God and Black Gold in the American Southwest.” Journal of American History 99, no. 1 (June 2012): 51–61.Google Scholar
George, Timothy. “Henry, Carl Ferdinand Howard (1913—).” In Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals, edited by Larsen, Timothy, 297–300. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Grem, Darren E. “Selling a ‘Disneyland for the Devout’”: Religious Marketing at Jim Bakker’s Heritage USA.” In Shopping for Jesus: Faith in Marketing in the USA, edited by Janes, Dominic, 137–60. Washington, DC: New Academia Press.Google Scholar
Grem, Darren E. “The Marketplace Missions of S. Truett Cathy and Chick-fil-A.” In Sunbelt Rising: The Politics of Space, Place and Region, edited by Nickerson, Michelle Dochuk, Darren, 293–315. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Hammond, Sarah Ruth. “‘God is My Partner’: An Evangelical Business Man Confronts Depression and War.” Church History 80, no. 3 (September 2011): 498–519.Google Scholar
Huntington, Deborah Kaplan, Ruth. “Whose Gold is Behind the Altar?: Corporate Ties to Evangelicals.” Contemporary Marxism 4 (Winter 1981–1982): 62–94.Google Scholar
Ibrahim, Nabil A. Rue, Leslie W. McDougall, Patricia P. Greene, G. Robert. “Characteristics and Practices of ‘Christian-Based’ Companies.” Journal of Business Ethics 10 (February 1991): 123–32.Google Scholar
McLarnon, John M. “Pie in the Sky vs. Meat and Potatoes: The Case of Sun Ship’s Yard No. 4.” Journal of American Studies 34, no. 1 (April 2000): 67–88.Google Scholar
Ockenga, Harold John. “The New Evangelicalism.” Park Street Spire (Boston, 1958), 2–7. In Jerry Falwell and the Rise of the Religious Right: A Brief History with Documents, edited by Sutton, Matthew Avery, 31–34. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013.Google Scholar
Phillips-Fein, Kim. “Conservatism: A State of the Field.” Journal of American History 98, no. 3 (Fall 2011): 723–43.Google Scholar
Shipps, Kenneth W. “Christianity Today (1956—).” In The Conservative Press in Twentieth-Century America, edited by Lora, Ronald Longton, William Henry, 171–80. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1999.Google Scholar
Sutton, Matthew Avery. “Was FDR the Antichrist? The Birth of Fundamentalist Antiliberalism in a Global Age.” The Journal of American History 98, no. 4 (March 2012): 1052–74.Google Scholar
Sweeney, Douglas A. “Christianity Today.” In Popular Religious Magazines of the United States, edited by Fackler, Mark P. Lippy, Charles H., 144–51. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995.Google Scholar
Waters, Ken. “The Evangelical Press.” In Winston, Diane, ed. “Christianity Today.” In The Oxford Handbook of Religion and the American Media, edited by Winston, Diane, 551–64. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Williams, Daniel K. “Evangelical Economics: Reexamining Christian Political Culture from a Market-Based Perspective.” Reviews in American History 39: no. 1 (March 2011): 175–184.Google Scholar

Magazines and Newspapers

Christianity TodayGoogle Scholar
Christianity and CrisisGoogle Scholar
TimeGoogle Scholar
U.S. News and World ReportGoogle Scholar
The Wall Street JournalGoogle Scholar

Unpublished Work

Fones-Wolf, Elizabeth Ken, Fones-Wolf. “What Was Different About Southern White Workers?” unpublished paper, 2013 Southern Labor Studies Conference, March 9, 2013.Google Scholar

Online Sources

“2013 Media Kit.” Christianity Today, 2013, http://www.christianitytodayads.com/uploads/MediaKit_final_2013.pdf.Google Scholar
Dochuk, Darren. “Searching Out the Sacred in U.S. Political History.” Perspectives in History, May, 2011. http://www.historians.org/perspectives/issues/2011/1105/1105for13.cfm.Google Scholar
Townsend, Robert. “A New Found Religion? The Field Surges Among AHA Members.” Perspectives in History, December, 2009. http://www.historians.org/perspectives/issues/2009/0912/0912new3.cfm.Google Scholar

Archival Sources

J. Howard Pew Personal Papers, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware.Google Scholar
Records of Christianity Today, Billy Graham Center Archives, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.Google Scholar
Vernon Patterson Collection, Billy Graham Center Archives, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.Google Scholar
LeTourneau Family Papers, LeTourneau University, Longview, Texas.Google Scholar

Dissertations

Gloege, Timothy. “Consumed: Rueben Torrey and the Construction of Corporate Fundamentalism.” PhD dissertation, Notre Dame University, 2008.Google Scholar
Hammond, Sarah Ruth. “‘God’s Business Men’: Entrepreneurial Evangelicals in Depression and War.” PhD dissertation, Yale University, 2010.Google Scholar
Waller, Doris Jean. “A Historical Analysis of Christianity Today Magazine and Christian Magazines in American Culture.” PhD dissertation, University of Mississippi, 2007.Google Scholar