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Web Review
The Diverse Nature of Resurgent Evangelicalism in America Today
 

National stereotypes that depict Evangelical Christians as fanatic Bible thumpers out to rule the political sphere conflict with the reality of a new diverse and in many ways progressive evangelical resurgence. Many of these new evangelicals are young as well as politically, economically, culturally, and socially diverse. They are Biblically conservative, but socially and politically progressive. As a young evangelical Christian in America today one must take issue with the stereotypical view of Christians within secular society. We care about the environment, the poor, sick, and the unborn. Evangelicals are more complex than society gives them credit for. Thus, my end of the year project will be a site for individuals to learn more about evangelical Christianity in America Today. As well, as serve as a forum for evangelical Christians to post testimonials and thus contribute to the reality of a more diverse evangelical movement. Many evangelicals are breaking stereotypes of what it means to be an evangelical Christian in America today. Depictions of evangelical Christians as an insular homogenous lot, views on biblical theology not withstanding, no longer suffice.

This conclusion was reached based on a previous class discussion about collecting data and archival sites. The dialogue in question got me to think differently about the type of project I wanted to do. It led me to ponder the idea of creating a site that would collect data about young Evangelicals. I chose this type of site because my paper for Research Seminar is on Resurgent Evangelicalism; with a focus on young evangelicals, mega churches, and progressive evangelicals. Thus creating a site that would attract those involved in the movement would help my research as well as serve my own interests. I would have areas on the site for visitors to post testimonials as well as answer surveys. However the class discussion also made me a little apprehensive in regard to creating such a site. Questions about the validity of postings on the various sites we had viewed for class lead me to question how I would be able to monitor postings on my own site. Through our discussion I realized just how much work goes into creating, monitoring, and maintaining a data collecting site. How would I stop individuals from posting lies about their involvement in the movement itself? I am still not sure of how to do this even though we had discussed in class the various speed bumps you can put into place to deter such individuals. Despite these uncertainties I still look forward to creating a data collecting site.  

In order to more efficiently create a web or data collecting site one must survey the digital landscape of the topic in question; not only to gain knowledge of the sources one can draw from, but to more fully understand the medium itself. In beginning research for my topic and end of the year project I found myself using the web more so than for any other research I had previously done. Thus it is important to examine the breadth of what the web has to offer. In searching for information and sites on the resurgent evangelicalism of today I found myself continually running into sites established by evangelical organizations. One of the more important resources I have found is the National Association of Evangelicals web site.  Recently the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) president Ted Haggard published a document calling for greater civic involvement on the part of evangelicals. The adoption of this document by the NAE, argues columnist Jennifer Haglof, is “a milestone in the movement of evangelicals from the insularity of a revival tent mind-set in the early 20^th century to the political activism of the 21^st century.”[1]  The NAE’s “For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility” outlined the obligation that evangelicals have to engage in social concerns such as erasing poverty, the AIDS epidemic, and saving the environment among other issues. “We have many commitments to the protection and well being of families and children, of the poor, the sick, the disabled, and the unborn, of the persecuted and oppressed, and the rest of the created order,” declares the NAE’s “For the Health of the Nation”.[2]

Given the controversial nature of evangelicalism in America today the number of websites devoted to discussion on the topic is quite vast. Christianity in America A Roundtable Discussion featuring J.I. Packer, James, M. Boice, Michael Horton,William Pannell, and Former Senate Chaplain Richard Halverson is only one site exploring the issue through an in depth discussion on pressing cultural questions concerning Christians today. In addition there are numerous journals and magazines available online that focus on Christianity in America such as Christianity Today, Campus Life, Charisma and Christian Life, and World. The Christianity Today site offers articles as well as chat rooms, entertainment reviews, shopping, and information regarding educational institutions.  In reviewing these sites one can collect a wealth of ideas on the appropriate and most efficient way to layout a site. In addition one can also use these sites as a guide to what types of sticky content are most appealing to the audience one is trying to reach.

Many of the search results, in addition to these informative web pages, were links to buy books about resurgent evangelicalism on Alibris or Amazon. As well as syllabi such as Religion 304 W: History of Christianity in America and CH 606, HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY IN AMERICA such sites however were not as beneficial in expanding my knowledge in regard to web sites on my topic. These results led me to diversify the search terms I had been using. In broadening my search through including the term “Christianity in America” I found a site that questioned Christians who “claim” to be biblical literalist, one of the foundations of the evangelical faith. Not surprisingly there are many sites on the web which take an opposing view on resurgent evangelicalism in America today. There are numerous forums such as MMDN Forums devoted to “reflecting on God” in extremely negative and hateful contexts. Conversely, there are several blogs/forums that discuss the Christian faith in a more positive light such as Truth and Democracy, Christianity in America - Reality, Myth, Truth and Lies, Teen Christian Forum, and Christian Forums.   

Inevitably in searching for sites related to Christianity or evangelicalism one finds many pages devoted to discussion of prominent political issues within the Christian community. At About.com one can find articles on Christianity and abortion in America. Not to mention the various other sites dedicated to similar social and political issues such as Focus on the Family, Today’s Christian Woman, and Alliance Life. Through reviewing the variety of sites available on my research topic I have discovered new resources not only for an end of the year project in digital history, but for my research essay as well.  In exploring the web for information and sites regarding resurgent evangelicalism in America today I found that there are not many, hardly any in fact, sites that discuss the history of Evangelicalism and that also serve as a forum for discussion on the topic. This is where a site such as the one I am proposing will add to the digital history field. In addition I have realized the importance of adaptability. What I mean by this is that in order to effectively search a topic one must be able to determine a variety of terms that may be used to describe the issue in question. In addition keeping a mental tab of what terms return certain results is important to maintain efficiency.  

Comment#1: 

In his book The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint Edward R. Tufte takes issue with lack of originality in power point presentations. In addition he discusses the many problems he feels are associated with such presentations. Tufte contends that “many true statements are too long to fit on a PP slide, but this does not mean we should abbreviate the truth to make the words fit” (Tufte 4). Thus he contends that the limited space on PowerPoint slides leads to a limitation of the truth. However Tufte misses the mark with this argument. When giving a power point presentation it is best to use descriptive text on the slides, leaving the lengthy explanation for the presenter. 

Comment#2: 

As argued by Tufte “Nearly all PowerPoint slides that accompany talks have much lower rates of information transmission than the talk itself.” Once again Tufte is off the mark. In order for a presentation to efficiently get the information across it is important that the audience is not torn between listening to the presenter and reading the slides; this is a problem that arises when the slides contain high rates of information transmission. 

Comment#3: 

I take issue with Tufte’s insistence that PowerPoint is not an adequate form for presentations. Many of the issues he has with PowerPoint are problems of personal taste. I agree that a large number of presentations are boring; however it is up to the individual to make their presentation informative, exciting, and artistic.   

Comment #1:

“Once produced, the book sits on a shelf awaiting readers. It has a firm existence,” assert Daniel Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig in their chapter within Digital History entitled “The Web, Websites, and Web Pages” Digital History. Both Cohen and Rosenzweig make an excellent point. One of the major differences between traditional mediums of history and history web sites is the flexibility of the latter venue. Sure authors often revise and reproduced books; however this takes time. Coming out with second and third editions of their works is a lot more time consuming than tweaking a page or publishing/posting an article on ones web site. I wonder if this will or has broken down the traditional, often constraining nature of more formally aspects of the history profession and or publishing?      

Comment #2:

In designing a web site it is important to keep in mind the type of audience you wanting to attract. And in doing so one must then apply that knowledge to the design of their website. Rosenzweig and Cohen in their chapter “Thinking About Your Website’s Genre and Features” Digital History contend that “although both are honorable professions, we encourage historians to think of themselves more like architects than plumbers. What kind of house are you building? What is the general area that it will be in? How will its design reflect or differ from the other houses in the neighborhood?” I have found such insights helpful in creating a site for my final project. I am trying to attract individuals of all ages and types thus it is important that the site be appealing to a wide range of people. However I am particularly interested in attracting young evangelicals as well, thus I will be including on my site links to Christians rock groups as well as links to sites where individuals can purchase cd’s or concert tickets. As discussed previously in class, if the site is not appealing or does not operate in the way users expect it is likely that they will quickly move on from your site.

Comment #3:

Cohen and Rosenzweig in their chapter “Naming Your Site and Presenting It to the World” Digital History address the issue of domain names and web addresses. Interestingly what is referred to as the top-level domain or TLD has more significance than one might believe. Different organizations or institutions use certain TLD’s by which web users can easily identify the type of site they are visiting just by reading the domain name. This is something I have always done to not only categorize sites, but it also determined there validity. For instance websites that end in .edu are academic more trustworthy on the whole. TLD’s such as .html are usually personal websites and .com’s I associate more with corporations or businesses. “More recently, the powers that govern the Internet have added the .museum TLD, which may hold attraction for some readers of this book, although most museums already use .org instead; to qualify for this new TLD, you must show the appropriate institutional bona fides,” contend Cohen and Rosenzweig. Although I have, over the years, used the TLD of sites as a filing or filtering system I had not known the proper term for the three letters at the end of a web address.

This photo was taken at CreationFest West at the Gorge in George, Washigton. the largest Christain festival on the West Coast. This displays the growing number of young evangelical christians in American today. The festival features Christian rock bands, worship, speakers, and testimonials.

Comment#1:

The Lifehacker site www.lifehacker.com was interesting to say the least. However I completely disagree with the argument that procrastinators sabotage themselves and intentionally place obstacles in their own way. One theory that I have about procrastination is that some individuals actually work better under tighter time restraints. Honestly many individuals procrastinate because they can get away with it. What I mean by this is their procrastination does not result in lower grades in their classes or late work, for example. However I will admit that some individuals take procrastination or being a slacker to the extreme. So much so that it negatively affects every aspect of their lives. I know this is not very scholarly, but the first thing I thought of when I visited this site was Ellen Degeneres’ act that she does on procrastination. Her motto: “Procrastinate now…don’t wait!”

Comment#2:

Margaret Hedstrom in her article entitled “Digital Preservation: A Time Bomb for Digital Libraries” http://www.uky.edu/~kiernan/DL/hedstrom.html discusses several of the pressing issues surrounding digital preservation. One problem she explores is the preservation of frail and rare books. This brought up an issue I had in regard to last week’s discussion on archiving or preserving data on the web. How can it be called preservation when in all reality you are destroying the document to in order to record its content for future generations? It all seems a little too similar to the flawed ideology of having to destroy the village to save it.   In addition our technology is moving so fast that the means through which we retrieve and store data are outdated at an ever growing pace; thus creating a need for conversion to these new technologies. Roy Rosenzweig and Daniel Cohen in their chapter entitled  “The Long-Term Fate of Your Site” http://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/preserving/6.php  concede that “it does not hurt to have copies of digital documents and images in a variety of formats; if you are lucky, one or more will be readable in the distant future.”
 

Comment#3:

The discussion by Roy Rosenzweig and Daniel Cohen brings up an interesting contradiction. In last weeks discussion we focused on archiving materials and collecting data on the web for preservation, but after reading their chapter entitled “The Long-Term Fate of Your Site” http://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/preserving/6.php  it is apparent that the web is not the permanent storage space it is made out to be. Not to mention the fact that hard drives themselves do not last indefinitely and the information they contain will one day be lost forever if the right precautions are not taken.

The discussion during our last class about collecting data and archival sites got me to think differently about the type of project I wanted to do. The discussion led me to ponder the idea of creating a site that would collect data about young Evangelicals. I chose this type of site because my paper for Research Seminar is on Resurgent Evangelicalism; with a focus on young evangelicals, mega churches, and progressive evangelicals. Thus creating a site that would attract those involved in the movement would help my research as well as serve my own interests. I would have areas on the site for visitors to post testimonials as well as answer surveys. However the class discussion also made me a little apprehensive in regard to creating such a site. Questions about the validity of postings on the various sites we had viewed for class lead me to question how I would be able to monitor postings on my own site. Through our discussion I realized just how much work goes into creating, monitoring, and maintaining a data collecting site. How would I stop individuals from posting fragrant lies about their involvement in the movement itself? I am still not sure of how to do this even though we had discussed in class the various speed bumps you can put into place to deter such individuals. Despite these uncertainties I still look forward to creating a data collecting site.  

Comment #1: It is interesting to see just how much consideration is given to cost vs. profit in regard to whether or not documents are digitized. “Local historians would ecstatically greet a fully digitized and searchable version of their small-town newspaper, but it would not justify hundreds of thousands of dollars in digitizing costs” argue Cohen and Rosenzweig. This dilemma speaks to the issue of memory and power that has so plagued traditional mediums of historical text. The historical moments that are recorded or researched by historians are the ones deemed important enough to receive critical analysis. The reality that small newspapers are not digitized due to the inherent value of much larger nationally published newspapers is disconcerting. The articles, editorials, and images in these smaller publications are just as valuable if not more significant than larger newspapers; however future generations may never get to see that. Particularly if the world of digitizing passes on the opportunity to archive smaller publications simply because the cost-benefit analysis deems them not worthy. The advances made in regard to digitization have allowed historians to record and archive text, images, and video in ways previous generations never imagined. And it is important that an air of democracy is present within the decision process in regard to what is and is not digitally archived for the generations to come.   Comment #2: In discussing the formats within which text can be digitized Rosenzweig and Cohen address both the advantages and drawbacks of such a reality. In particular visual representations of text vs. machine readable text. Rosenzweig and Cohen assert that “as mere visual representations of text, page images cannot be searched or manipulated in the same ways as machine-readable text.” They make a valid point with this argument however the emotion and character of hand written text is in some ways destroyed when transcribed into a digital format. So, why not do both; present a visual representation as well as a machine readable text of the given document. I realize this contention contradicts the earlier arguments made by Cohen and Rosenzweig over the cost-benefit analysis of digitization however it may be the solution to many of the issues they discuss. 

Comment#3:  In their chapter entitled Becoming Digital Cohen and Rosenzweig state “The project directors cited a range of reasons for their choices. The most common explanation they offered for doing projects onsite was that the original materials were rare or fragile.” This lead me to believe that there is an seemingly untapped job market for historians/preservationists that also have backgrounds in digital history/computer science degrees. Facilities should have onsite departments that deal with the issue of digitizing audio visual.