The Age Of Evangelicalism, By Steven P. Miller

The musical Hair may have been great comedy when it was re¬leased in 1967, but it was poor prophecy. The spirit of the 1960s had audiences singing that it was the “dawning of the Age of Aquarius.” Nine years later, Time magazine declared that 1976 was the “year of the evangelical.” Seven years after that, President Reagan was calling for 1983 to be the “year of the Bible.”..

In the 1970s, evangelicalism had not yet become tethered to conservative politics. Carter, a Democrat, received almost 50 percent of the evangelical vote (Nixon had received 84 percent in 1972). The evangelical left of Ron Sider and Jim Wallis took shape in the 1970s too. In that decade evangelicalism seemed noteworthy less for being conservative than for being cool.