1830s-1860s: The Civil War, civil disobedience and the ‘radical’ evangelicals
In his second inaugural address, shortly before his assassination, Abraham Lincoln lamented: "Both [Northerners and Southerners] read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. … The prayers of both could not be answered. … The Almighty has His own purposes." Slavery did divide the nation, yet many Christians — prominent and obscure — risked everything to stand for what was right.

Especially in the Underground Railroad. Slaves had for many years resisted slaveholders and fled their shackles. With time a secretive but widespread "railroad" developed — often-hazardous paths through forests and swamps, leading to houses, barns, churches, ports, cities and villages, all elaborately networked. The Mississippi and Ohio Rivers carried escaped slaves northward to safe havens like Canada. Other routes led southward, to the Caribbean and Mexico. No one knows how many escaped. Some say 100,000. Others, conservatively, tens of thousands.

Founded in 1833, Oberlin College was dedicated to holiness, revival, social reform, and the ministry of Charles Finney. Unswervingly committed to conversion, Finney and fellow Oberlinites were nonetheless outspoken and effective abolitionists.

Essentially, the entire town of Oberlin, Ohio, turned into an Underground depot. Acts of civil disobedience came to a head early in 1858 when Oberlinites dramatically, and rather publicly, rescued one fugitive from "slave catchers" — which led to the arrest of a professor, Henry Peck, and a Sunday school superintendent, James Fitch. Their trial attracted international attention. And it inspired others to follow their lead.

In his Lectures on Systematic Theology, Finney declared, "No human constitution or enactment can, by any possibility, be law that recognized the right of one human being to enslave another." People listened — and acted.

1864: ‘In God We Trust’
Just above the Speaker’s desk in Congress is inscribed the phrase "In God We Trust." It is a constant reminder to our legislature that wisdom to solve the nation’s problems must be sought from God, as well as from human insight and knowledge.

This phrase is also on our currency. It is significant that this most affluent nation in all of human history has chosen to remind itself constantly that its material success does not provide its ultimate security.

As the dark days of the Civil War began, Mark Watkinson of Pennsylvania was troubled by the divisiveness and hatred engendered by the war. He wrote to the government suggesting that it might be helpful if on our coins we recognized God in some way in order to correct this growing hostility among us.

Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase was impressed with these sentiments, and so Chase wrote a memo to the director of the U.S. Mint requesting that he prepare a design that would reflect our national dependence on God. In his letter Chase wrote: "No nation can be strong except in the strength of God, or safe except in His defense. The trust of our people in God should be declared on our national coins."

The Mint prepared the phrase "In God We Trust" as a design for coins. Congress approved the recommendation in 1864 and it was added to our coins.

Later, Congress adopted this phrase as our national motto, and specified that all our currency — both paper and coins — "shall bear the inscription, ‘In God We Trust.’ "

1840s-1920s: ‘Into all the world’
Its history coincides with the history of evangelicalism between the Civil War and the two Great Wars of the 20th century. President Lincoln praised its work among Civil War soldiers and prisoners of war. It launched the ministries of D.L. Moody and Billy Sunday, and the modern student missions movement. It gave the military the USO. It even gave the country basketball. The "C" in its title definitely meant "Christian." Few people today realize the impact that the Young Men’s Christian Association — the YMCA — has had on America and the world.

On June 6, 1844, George Williams and a few friends founded the Young Men’s Christian Association in London, England, in response to the havoc wreaked by the Industrial Revolution upon city youth. They focused on prayer, Bible study, and evangelism; athleticism would come later.

In 1851 the YMCA came to Boston, then quickly to other cities. Moody caught the vision in Boston, moved to Chicago, participated in the 1857-58 revival, left the shoe business, and answered the call to ministry. In 1866, he became the Association’s Chicago president and built one of the most influential chapters (among those influenced, baseball star Billy Sunday).

One estimate, in 1905, claimed YMCA membership at state universities was as high as 20 percent for men and 50 percent for women (who had their own YWCA). In 1908, the typical Y enrolled one-fourth of the men on campus in Bible studies. The movement peaked in 1921 with 90,000 members (1 in 7 collegians at the time). John R. Mott, whose work earned him a Nobel prize, was a member while at Cornell. Later as YMCA secretary, he launched the Student Volunteer Movement (SVM) for Foreign Missions — which sent 20,000 overseas.

George Williams would have liked SVM’s motto: "The evangelization of the world in this generation."

1850-1900: ‘God’s women’ — The 19th century’s forgotten feminists
A few years back, filmmaker Ken Burns directed and co-produced an award-winning PBS documentary on women’s suffrage called Not For Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. In a related interview on PBS, Burns was asked, "What do you feel is the greatest challenge facing historians today?"

"I think," he responded, "that historians sometimes forget that history tells us as much about who we are now as it does about the past we’re supposedly investigating."

There are aspects of an earlier women’s movement that the post-1960s variety would rather forget — such as their debt to Christianity. In the 19th century, the Second Great Awakening, the parachurch organizations it spawned, the spread of Methodist and Baptist churches (and others), and the Abolition movement fueled feminism. On the one side, Susan B. Anthony and others devoted themselves to the more political sphere — and to more liberal Christianity; however, there were also leaders like holiness advocate Phoebe Palmer and Pentecostal evangelist Maria Woodworth-Etter.

Many today see "feminism" as mere liberation — freedom from any and all constraints. But earlier Christian feminists emphasized their ministry to the world. "Wherever there is any movement for the uplifting of society to higher planes," argued suffragist Anna Howard Shaw, "you will find the women in the forefront." Feminism meant a God-given responsibility; it meant defending others, not simply one’s own self-interest. The poor, the defenseless, children and the unborn all were groups that benefited.

As Elizabeth Cady Stanton once said to Julia Ward Howe: "When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit."

more back